**Program Tutorials** : Photo Impact : *NEW

filling text with a pattern with ulead photoimpact
By and ©2005 Jeri Ingalls
Sometimes you want to give your text a little extra flair, especially when you’re using it as a title for your scrapbook page. Monograms are also popular to use on layouts. This tutorial will show you how to fill your text with a pattern, it’s simple to do and can really give your page that little extra visual appeal!
First, type out your letter onto your layout. You will probably need to use a large size, the font I’ve chosen to use is Georgia Bold at a size of 800. You will need to type in the size into the box as the preset font sizes only go up to 124. Thicker fonts work a little better with this kind of effect, but a thin font will also work, you just won’t see as much of the pattern.

Next, open the pattern you want to fill your letter with. This can be anything from a photo to a piece of digital scrapbook paper, or even a custom made graphic that you’ve designed specifically for this purpose. You may want to adjust its size also, depending on the way you’d like to make the pattern fill the letter, a large piece of digital paper may need to be made a little smaller if you’d like to fit more of the pattern into the letter. I’m opening up one of my digital papers here and reducing the size by 60% for this project.

Now, with your fill selected, go to Edit/Copy. This will store the fill onto your clipboard. Now select the window with your layout in it, click on the text to activate it and choose Edit/Paste/Into Selection.

This will put the fill inside the letter, you can then move the pattern around with your mouse to where you would like it to appear in the text, then click on the mouse button when you are finished to place it.
Your letter should now look like this:

If you’re unhappy with the placement, you can follow the Edit/Paste/Into Selection step again and it will place the pattern on top of the old and once again you can move it into the position you want it in. Zoom into the letter so you have a closer look, this is especially helpful if the pattern is detailed and you’d like certain parts to show in the letter.
If the pattern is too small to fill the letter, and its also seamless, you may want to use the Fill command instead of the Paste Into Selection command. To do this go to Edit/Fill, choose the Image Tab, and then select Clipboard, and Tile the Image. This gives you less control over where the fill is placed in the letter, but may be necessary if the image is too small, or is a small tiling pattern.

I like to add a border around the letter for extra contrast against the page, to do this go to the Brush Tool in the left hand menu, choose the shape, size, color, transparency, and the softness of the edge you would like. I used the settings below for my letter.

Go to Effect/Creative/Paint on Edges and the border will be applied.

If you’d like to add a drop shadow, simply go to Object/Shadow, check the Shadow Box, select the offset, transparency, size and the softness of the edge you’d like, and then select Okay. This will add some depth to your letter and make it look as if it’s actually placed on the page rather than embedded within it. This is if you are looking for the paperscrapped look and isn’t necessary if you prefer a graphic look to your layouts.

And there you have it! If this is only one letter in a title, try using other patterns for other letters, this will give you lots of options for finding the look that you want on your layout. Try filling the letters with photos as well for an even different look, and a creative way to use up smaller photos of an event that you’d like to use on the page, but don’t want to focus on.
I used a beach photo for this letter.

So as you can see, the possibilities are endless!

© Copyright 2003-2005 by Scrapbook-Bytes; & original creator/s of tutorials/articles

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