1 Reply Latest reply: Aug 13, 2009 11:34 PM by c.pfaffenbichler RSS

    Text Manipulation and Variable Data in Photoshop

    Bill Vojtech Community Member

      Our company is getting into variable data printing. There are a few ways to get variable data into photos. I've played with a program called Direct Smile. Its text manipulation tools are rather good. It lays a grid over the text and you can select each grid intersection and pull and push to get the text into the shape you want.

       

      There are other programs that work through InDesign and Photoshop, using scripts to insert the variable data into the Photoshop text layer.

       

      When I tried to warp the text in Photoshop I found that beyond a certain point, you have to flatten the text, at which point, it's no longer a text layer that can accept variable data from a database.

       

      Is there anything like the grid tool in Direct Smile in Photoshop?

        • 1. Re: Text Manipulation and Variable Data in Photoshop
          c.pfaffenbichler Community Member

          I’m unfamiliar with Direct Smile.

           

          But for text-manipulation in Photoshop You might want to consider converting the Text to a Smart Object which can then be warped or treated with the Distort-Filter Displace, all the while maintaining the text-layer within the SO and thusly its editability.

          And if I remember correctly one can even make Liquify applicable as a Smart Filter, but one would have to save the Mesh separately … possibly too problematic a solution.

           

          Or You could go via Illustrator which offers Envelope Distort (which provides a grid-based »plasticity«) and then embed the result thereof as a SO in the Photoshop-file. Unfortunately Illustrator doesn’t Script as comfortably as Photoshop in my limited experience and Envelope Distort my be unscriptable altogether.

           

          But if I understand correctly You will want to automate all that stuff, so maybe You should check out the respective Scripting-Fora.