White text... it's what we're NOT printing!

I thought I'd continue with the computer journaling theme and show you how to print in white! Now strictly speaking the whole printing in white is a misnomer as you actually print the area around the text or design not the text itself, because as yet no printers have white ink (and when they do I'll be first in line!). I already have the layout partially done and know that I want to print an area approximately half the size of a letter sheet of paper. In Photoshop I opened a new document 5.5" x 8.5". My journaling and title need to be on the right had side in an area 3.5" x 5.5" so I created a text box in that size on the right size of the paper by clicking the Text icon, then clicking and dragging a box in your document. Then we can add the text, altering the font and size as necessary to fill the area


As you can see the text is the default black, so lets work on the background we're going to print. For my layout I wanted a duckegg blue background to match the colors of my layout, so a filled the area with a blue using the paintbucket tool.


Now I could have left the blue as is, flat color, and printed it out. But the papers I was using for the layout were all distressed, so I opted to give the background a little depth by adding texture filter. In Photoshop: filter>texturizer> then choose filter of choice. I chose the Craquelure, and just played with the setting depth till I got a look I liked that resembled the texture on my other papers.


Our final step is to highlight all of the text and choose white as our font color. This sets all the text to white, then we can print onto high quality white paper. I print mine at high quality either on photo paper or high quality white inkjet paper.


Once printed, trim and assemble the layout using the printed sheet the same as you would a regular patterned paper or journaling block.

Supplies: Patterned Paper: My Minds Eye, Buttons: My Minds Eye, Transparancy: My Minds Eye, Brads: Doodlebug, Boxer scrapbooks, Photo Corners: Heidi Swapp, Photoshop: Fonts: Arial, Rosewood,

This tutorial is done in Photoshop but the steps are basically the same for all software. Type the text you require, make the background the color you want to be behind the white text, then select your font color to white! Its a simple trick, but sometimes white text and titles can be really effective on a layout!

Published in Scrapstreet Ezine August 2007
Images and Text: Copyright Di Hickman 2007