Photoshop Text Effects Tutorial: Stroke Text With A Brush

In this Photoshop text tutorial, we're going to see how to stroke (outline) our text using any brush we have available to us in Photoshop.

Step 1: Create A New Document

As usual, the first thing we need to do is create a new document, and the easiest way to do that is by using the keyboard shortcut, "Ctrl+N" (Win) or "Command+N" (Mac), which brings up the New Document dialog box. Choose whichever size you like for your document. I'll use 500x500 pixels for this tutorial.

Step 2: Add Your Text

Press the letter "T" on your keyboard to quickly select the Horizontal Type Tool. Then, select the font you want to use from the Options Bar. I'll use Helvetica Black, but feel free to use any font you like.

With your font selected, click inside your document window and add your text. Since this is a tutorial on stroking text with a brush, I'll type the word "BRUSH".

Step 3: Create A Path From The Text

With the Type Tool still selected, right-click (Win) or Option-click (Mac) anywhere inside the document to bring up a sub menu of options for your text. We're going to need a path for our brush to follow, and we want the path to exactly follow the shapes of the letters, so we're going to create a path from our text. To do that, choose the "Create Work Path" option from the sub menu.

Once you've selected "Create Work Path", you'll see an outline around the letters in your text. This is the path our brush is going to follow.

Step 4: Add A New Layer Above The Text Layer

We have our text and our path, but Photoshop won't allow us to use a brush directly on a text layer, so we'll need to create a new layer above the text layer. With the text layer selected in the Layers palette, click on the "New Layer" icon at the bottom of the Layers palette to create a new layer above the text layer.

Step 5: Hide The Text Layer

Now that we have our path in the shape of our letters, we don't really need to see the text layer itself anymore, so click on the eyeball icon on the far left of the text layer in the Layers palette to hide the layer from view.

This will leave us with just the path we created showing in the document, not the text itself.

Step 6: Select A Brush

Next, we need a brush. Press "B" on the keyboard to quickly select the Brush tool, or select it from the Tools palette.

To quickly select a brush to use, with the Brush tool selected, move your mouse anywhere inside the document window and right-click (Win) or Option-click (Mac) to bring up the Brush Preset Picker. You can also access it from the Options Bar, but this way is a bit faster.

Use the scroll bar to scroll through the available brushes and click on the one you want to use. I'll select the Chalk brush, but you can choose any brush you like. The purpose of this tutorial is to explain the technique so that you can stroke any text with any brush, not to achieve a specific effect.

Use the Master Diameter slider at the top of the Brush Preset Picker to change the size of the brush as needed. A quick way to tell if your brush is too large or too small is to hover your brush over the path of one of the letters to judge its size. If it look like it's probably too large or too small, change the brush size, hover the brush over the path again, and continue this process until you think you have the brush at a good size. The nice thing is, you don't have to get it right on the first attempt. Once you've stroked the path with the brush as we'll do in a moment, if you don't like the effect and need to change the size of the brush, or if you'd prefer to try a different brush, all you need to do is undo the stroke, make any necessary changes to the brush, and then try again until you're happy with the results.

Step 7: Switch To The Paths Palette

We have our path, we have our brush, and we have our new layer to add our brush stroke to. Now we need to switch from the Layers palette to the Paths palette, but before we do, make sure the new layer (the layer we're going to add the brush stroke to) is selected in the Layers palette. If it's not selected, click on it to select it. We won't be able to stroke the path unless this layer is selected.

With the new layer selected, switch to the Paths palette. You'll find it in the same layer group as the Layers palette (by default, anyway). Click on its name tab at the top of the layer group to bring the Paths palette to the front of the group and send the Layers palette to the back.

You'll notice in the Paths palette that it's showing the path we created, which Photoshop named "Work Path". "Work Path" simply means that the path is currently temporary, and if we were to create another path, this current work path would be replaced by the new path. We have the option of saving paths we create, but for the sake of what we're doing here, we don't need to worry about that. Leaving the path as a temporary work path is fine.

Step 8: Stroke The Path With The Brush

On the bottom of the Paths palette is a row of icons, similar to the row of icons found at the bottom of the Layers palette. The icon second from the left, which looks like an outlined circle, is the "Stroke Path With Brush" icon. That's the one we want. All we have to do is click on this icon, and Photoshop will take the brush we've selected and use it to stroke the path, giving us our effect!

I chose the Chalk brush, and here's the effect I get after stroking my path with the brush:

The path outline is still visible, which is good because I'm going to stroke the path once again, but this time making my brush a little smaller first. I want to try and emphasize the shapes of the letters a bit more.

To do that, I'm just going to move my mouse cursor back into the document window and right-click (Win) or Option-click (Mac) once again to bring back the Brush Preset Picker, and I'm going to drag the slider bar for the Master Diameter a little to the left to reduce the size of my brush a bit.

Now, with my slightly smaller brush, I'm going to click on the "Stroke Path With Brush" icon at the bottom of the Paths palette once again. In fact, I think I'll click on it twice, or even three times, to really give me a strong, solid brush stroke right along the path itself. Here's my result:

Step 9: Hide The Path

All we have to do now is hide the path from view, since we don't need to see it anymore. To do that, use the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl+H" (Win) or "Command+H" (Mac), and the path is no longer visible.

Here's the final result:

Again, keep in mind that the purpose of this tutorial was to show you how to use this technique to stroke any text with any brush you like, not to create this specific effect. Feel free to experiment with your own text and your own brush choices to see what sort of effects you can come up with!

And that's our look at how to stroke text with a brush inside Adobe Photoshop.