Sometimes you are looking for the perfect alpha and you can’t find it. And sometimes you have a font that you just love and want to do MORE with it. Well, it’s easy! We’ll just turn a favorite font into an alpha!
I do want to note that this tutorial is for personal use…the fonts I am going to use are not necessarily for commercial use. I just want to show you how you, as a scrapper (non-designer), can make something for you to use on your personal pages. Using non-commercial use fonts to sell or even give away is against copyright laws and most TOU.
Let’s look at the alpha I made for this page:
Credits: Stitching by Syrin, staples and brads by Shabby Princess, everything else was made by me
To make this alpha I started with a blank document and typed out my letters and numbers, adding a space between each character (the font here is Quicksand).
Then, holding down my command key (Control key on a PC) I clicked on the thumbnail in the layers palette. This selected all of the active pixels on that layer.
Then, on a new layer, I went to Select > Modify > Expand and then entered my value. In this case, I chose 25 pixels. This took the selection I had made (the letters) and made it larger.
Once the outline was expanded, I went to Edit > Fill Selection and then chose my color (in this case, a light gray, since this was just going to be in template form).
Then I saved this document in a layered format so that I can use it again. Then I continued.
I knew I wanted “sticker letters” so I changed the gray layer to white and deleted my background. For the letters, I wanted to use these colors:
Using my magic wand tool, I clicked on every fourth character to select the black letter part and once they were all selected, I again went to Edit > Fill Selection and then chose my foreground color which was set to green.
I continued on until all the characters were filled with different colors, then I merged the two layers and DONE! I had an alpha to use whenever I needed it. It is so easy! Here are a few other fonts I have turned into alphas:
So why not take YOUR favorite font and turn it into an alpha for you to use on your page?
Share This Using…
This is a great tutorial! Thank you so much.
Great tip — can’t wait to try it.
GREAT idea! I have never done this before.. never even knew where to start. Thanks so much!!
Thank you – I’m always amazed at the fun & simple but powerful things you share with all of us!
This is great, a lot of kits out there don’t have alpha’s included, so this is wonderful!
Thank you; this is a GREAT tutorial!!!
Thank you Thank you! So simple and so useful!
Love this – great tutorial!
THANK YOU!!!! I have been doing something similar with my fonts but this is SO much easier. You rock!
Love this! Thanks so much for the tutorial…can’t wait to try it out!
Thank you so much for showing how to make an alpha! I’ve always wanted to know.
Thank you for this! I was about to write you and ask HOW do I make “sticker-letters” like your 9/29 layout “First Day of School.” You are a mind-reader on top of everything else. THANKS!
Love this post!
This will be great to use with kits that don’t come with alphas.
Thank you!
I was trying to do something like this but couldn’t figure it out. Thanks for the tip of the week!
Just wanted to let you know I LOVE the “Friday Flyer.” Wonderful idea!! Thanks so much!
Monica – this was my problem. Make sure that your “new layer” is underneath the original layer with the alpha on it. That will bring the black alpha out on top of the fill layer. Hope this makes sense – this was the problem I had too!
Thanks Janet. Can’t wait to try it.
Ok, now I can fill it but everything is gray. Any ideas?
This looks super cool but I’m not sure how to make it work!
Hi! I’m trying to do this tutorial in Photoshop CS3 but can’t seem to get find the Edit -> Fill Selection command. Once I expand my selection by 25 pixels, and the pixels are still selected, my Edit -> Fill command is grayed out. Any ideas?
Awesome tutorial Janet!
Nevermind! I got it!
Love this idea!! I’m having trouble in PSE7 though so I’m looking for any ideas. I get through “select and expand” just fine. But when I go to “fill selection” and choose grey or any other color, it is filling the entire font letter and not leaving the black original font showing as yours does in the example. Is there somthing I should have in the “blending mode” box checked to make this happen?
I’m almost there!! Someone please help!
I also re-discovered that in The Digi Files 2 there’s an alpha template by Mushy- I used it on a recent LO and it was awesome. Such a great technique to know that I can make a custom alpha for any page with a favorite font!
I can’t wait to use this on a layout. Thank you for show me how to
I love using my PSE to expand my digi supplies!!