How to add text over an image in Photoshop, and adjust the font or color

Emma Witman

Nov 12, 2019, 01:19 IST

How to add text over an image in Photoshop, and adjust the font or color

It's easy to add text over an image on Photoshop.

You can add text in Photoshop in just a few steps, along with adjusting the color and font of the text.
It may be useful to add text over an image in Photoshop if you're creating a poster or want to label a photo.
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Maybe you're starting a band that can't afford a marketing team to make posters just yet. Or perhaps you're a frantic dog owner looking for a missing pup.

Either way, it's undeniable - knowing how to slap text over a photo is certainly a useful life skill.

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And Photoshop 2020 users have a huge breadth of formatting and design options at their fingertips when it comes to throwing text on an image.

Here are the basics to get you started with adding text to your next Photoshop project.

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How to add text in Photoshop

1. Upload the photo. In this case, I downloaded my photo from Google Drive and dropped the image into Photoshop by dragging and dropping it over the icon, a feature on Mac computers.

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Napo the dog (short for Napoleon), looking poised and ready to be Photoshop famous.

2. I choose an image where I could easily identify dark and light areas to place text. If, however, you need to modify the background to make the text more legible, check out our article, "How to change the background color of your photos in Photoshop to make your images more striking."

3. Click the icon on the left side toolbar that looks like a serif font capital "T." Select Horizontal Type Tool. A text box with latin text should appear.

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The latin dummy text is meant to be a useful placeholder, but can often just feel in the way and get accidentally left behind.

4. To quickly swipe clean the included "Lorem Ipsum" dummy text, type Ctrl or Command+A, and then backspace or delete, depending on your operating system.

5. Adjust the font color to contrast from the background (if you need to) using the main options bar. There will be a rectangular color tile toward the center of the horizontal menu.

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For a dark background, I need to use light text. The default in photoshop for text is black ink.

6. Keep in mind that whenever you make changes, you'll need to hit return or enter, or click the checkmark on the main options bar, to secure your edits and additions.

7. In the "Properties" panel, you can adjust the font under "Character."

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Just a PSA for everyone that Napo isn't actually lost - don't worry.

Be sure to save your work.

Even as you save your every move while navigating Photoshop, your final product itself needs to be assigned a home on your computer's hard drive, an external drive, or in a cloud service.