Comments on: Photoshop’s “Convert To Outlines” Command

By: Vishal

Vishal — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:21:46 +0000

Hi Jeremy,

I’m designing a logo for a university club. Using the Layer> Type> Convert to shape seems to make my crisp text turn fuzzy. It goes back to normal on rasterizing, but since I want to get the logo printed on a T-shirt, I want to keep it a vector. Wikipedia tells me rasterizing it means its not a vector anymore. But they also say text in photoshop text layers are are automatically vectors. The only reason I am trying to convert the text to shapes is because its a requirement from the printer. Is there any way to to do this without making the text fuzzy?

By: Jeremy Schultz

Jeremy Schultz — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 12:51:32 +0000

You should be seeing more than that. I run CS5 on a Mac and the Layer > Type menu has all the options you mentioned plus a few more, including Convert to Shape. Maybe older version of Photoshop have it someplace else, but this article is four years old so it’s true for at least CS2 or CS3 and later.

By: Kirra

Kirra — Sat, 27 Nov 2010 09:15:36 +0000

Hi!
I have a question..
when you say go into Layer â€“> Type â€“> Convert to Shape
my computer doesn’t give me the last option ‘convert to shape’?
it gives me 5 other options
Layers – Type – then..
-Horizontal (which is seleccted)
-Vertical
-Anti Alias off
-Anti Alias on (which is selected)
or
-Warp text?

I have a Mac computer and don’t know if this makes a difference?
We need them printed this week and the printer said to google it, i can’t find anything except this option and have no idea what to do?
Are you able to help?

Kirra

By: Jeremy Schultz

Jeremy Schultz — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 22:33:42 +0000

It’s been awhile since I’ve worked with PDFs in Photoshop (I use native files now that the Creative Suite optimizes that kind of workflow) but as long as you retain the vector shapes and save to PDF in Photoshop, you should see sharp text in your PDF even when you zoom in close in Acrobat. If the type remains sharp, you’ll have quality text.

By: http://designorati.com/wp-content/themes/d3/images/ffield_label_name.png

http://designorati.com/wp-content/themes/d3/images/ffield_label_name.png — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 11:28:42 +0000

Thank you, Jeremy, for your information. I would like to also create simply page design with Photoshop, as my work is also image-based, but I do not understand what the exact workflow is after one converts the text to ’shape’. I have never understood what exactly one does from that step to create a PDF that can then go to the printer and be assured that the text will print razor-sharp.

Thanks again, Jeremy.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 19 May 2010 20:17:33 +0000

Hi nice tip, however i usually rasterize my texts. Is it different or they both works the same way?

By: Scott Weaver

Scott Weaver — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:19:07 +0000

Thank you, Jeremy, for your information. I would like to also create simply page design with Photoshop, as my work is also image-based, but I do not understand what the exact workflow is after one converts the text to ‘shape’. I have never understood what exactly one does from that step to create a PDF that can then go to the printer and be assured that the text will print razor-sharp.

Thanks again, Jeremy.

By: marieder

marieder — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:02:53 +0000

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By: alyssa trevino

alyssa trevino — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 14:40:01 +0000

Hi,
I have a catalog cover I am doing and I have the file in Photoshop. I did not rasterize the text to outlines, but did flatten the file and saved it as a .TIFF so I could use it in Quark.

Will my text still print clearly.

I read somewhere that flatten the file in Photoshop will also produce the same results as ‘rasterizing the text’ layer. Is that true?

thanks,
Alyssa

By: Kristen Garcia

Kristen Garcia — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 12:25:03 +0000

Thanks for the tip. I’m a new Photoshop user and was working on a file that required outlining the text. I hope this satisfies the printer, but your tip was the only one I found worthwhile!

Thanks!

By: Samuel John Klein

Samuel John Klein — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 03:09:12 +0000

Excellent suggestion!

Formerly I’d depend on Illustrator for this. Thanks for expanding my thinking a bit.