Single line path from fonts in Photoshop

[Marieke Feenstra]

Hi, I would like to use a font in Photoshop, create a path that goes through the middle of the letters. If I create a path now it's always and outline. I am using the command stroke path and I only want the text to be stroked once, not back and forth. I can't create my own paths by hand. So what is the way to do this in Photoshop?

[Dan Rodney]

1. Choose the Line tool.
2. In the Options bar at the top of the screen, on the left is a menu that probably says Path, change that to Shape.
3. In the Options bar, set the desired Stroke color and thickness.
4. Draw your line (which will become it's own shape layer)

[Marieke Feenstra]

Hi Dan, thank you. I am trying to accomplish this without having to draw over the text. Is there a way to do it? 

[Dan Rodney]

You can add a line through text using Strikethrough: 

1. Select/highlight the text with the Type tool.
2. Go into the Window menu and choose Character.
3. In the Character panel that opens, click the Strikethrough button (it's a T with a line in through the middle of it).

You can't customize how that looks (position, thickness, etc), but it will make the horizontal line through the middle of the text for you automatically.

[Marieke Feenstra]

Hi, thank you for your answer, however I am not looking for a strikthrough line, I am looking for a line in the shape of the font, meaning at the the center of the font instead of an outline of a font. Sp the path that is created now if you create a path is actually an outline, and I need the path to be a 1 line path.

[Dan Rodney]

Oh, sort of like converting to outlines... but only one line in the center of the shape of the text? Like you're retracing the character shapes with a single link? I don't know of any way to do that automatically in either Photoshop or Illustrator. 

[Marieke Feenstra]

Yes, exactly, there should be a way to do this. I have been looking for 2 days now, but the closest I can get to that result is just using a single line font, but still it makes an outline. If anyone knows, please respond here, it would be much appreciated 🙏

[Marieke Feenstra]

[Dan Rodney]

Fonts will always be fills and not strokes.

The image you just shared looks like it was created in Adobe Illustrator as a blend using a custom spine path that was drawn by hand.

[Marieke Feenstra]

No it was not actually, I created it myself, it was created with a single line font in photoshop, created a path (which became an outline) and then stroke path.

[Dan Rodney]

Actually, here's a technique that uses Adobe Illustrator's Image Trace to convert it a path. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fi-soCp7dbc

[Dan Rodney]

If you need the path in Photoshop you can copy and paste from Illustrator into Photoshop.

[Marieke Feenstra]

Hi, yes thank you, I did find that video as well, but I don't have Illustrator and don't have to time to learn it right now. I was just wondering if this can be replicated in Photoshop in a different way, the illustrator way does not work in Photoshop

[Dan Rodney]

Photoshop is pixel-based with some vector editing capabilities. Illustrator is a vector-based app, and fonts are vector... so you can do more with Illustrator. Therefore Photoshop does not have the same high-quality conversion to vector feature that Illustrator has.

At the moment I can't think of a way to do this exact same thing only using Photohop without Illustrator. 

[Marieke Feenstra]

Hi, thank you so much for your help, maybe we can find someone who has tried this before, I would like to keep the question open so if someone knows the way, I would appreciate to learn about it. I thought if you have a single line font with a 1 pixel line it should work, but it doesn't so would be good to understand how to get that line in the center using pixels. 

[Art Aldrich]

I too had this very same challenge. I wanted to animate a signature like it was being hand written.

After going down many of the same resources, I finally discovered an option that worked for me.

First, I found a single line font, which seems to be popular with CNC cutters. I found a free one <https://k40lasercutter.com/product/fancy-king-single-line-font/> and installed it on my system.

I then used Illustrator to create the name, converted to outlines, the copy and pasted directly into After Effects where I could animate using the genate stroke effect.

Worked as I had hoped.

I think the key take away here is to find and use a single line font that you like.