Photoshop Text Effects Tutorial: Multiple Text Strokes

In this Photoshop text tutorial, we're going to see how easy it is to add as many strokes to your text as you want, rather than settling for just one.

Step 1: Create A New Document

As usual, we start by creating a new Photoshop document, either by choosing "New..." from the File Menu in the Menu Bar, or by using the faster keyboard shortcut, "Ctrl+N" (Win) or "Command+N" (Mac). Either method brings up the New Document dialog box. Choose any size for your document. I'll choose one of the preset document sizes, 640x480 pixels.

Step 2: Select The Horizontal Type Tool

To add type to our document, we'll need the Horizontal Type Tool. Select it from the Tools palette, or use the keyboard shortcut, "T".

Step 3: Choose A Font From The Options Bar

With the Horizontal Type Tool selected, go up to the Options Bar at the top of the screen and choose the font and font size you want to use for the effect.

Step 4: Add Your Text

Click inside your document window and add your text. I'll type the word "STROKES".

Step 5: Select "Stroke" From The Layer Styles Menu

Once you've added your text, click on the "Layer Styles" icon at the bottom of the Layers palette, and select "Stroke" from the list (it's the option at the very bottom of the list).

As soon as you select "Stroke" from the list, two things will happen; The rather large Layer Style control panel will appear on your screen, and Photoshop will automatically add a stroke around your text, set to the default color of red (why red is the default stroke color is beyond me).

Step 6: Adjust The Size And Position Of The Stroke

The default size for the stroke is 3px, which means the stroke has a width of 3 pixels, and the default position is "Outside", which means the stroke falls outside the letters (or shape, whatever the case may be) rather than inside them. I'm going to reduce the size of my stroke to 2 pixels by dragging the Size slider bar at the top of the control panel to the left, and I'm going to set the position for this first stroke to "Inside" by selecting "Inside" from the "Position" selection box.

Here's what my text looks after making the changes:

Step 7: Set The 'Fill' Of The Text To 0% To Hide The Text And Reveal Only The Stroke

Now that I have my first stroke outline around my text, I don't want to see my actual text anymore. All I want to see is the stroke outlining it. Since the background color for my document is white, I could just change the color of my text to white, but what if I change the background color later? I'd have to change the text color as well. A better solution is to simply hide the text from view while still keeping the layer styles visible. And it's very easy to do that.

With the text layer selected, go up to the top of the Layers palette. You'll see two options, "Opacity" and "Fill". You can hide the text by lowering the Opacity value to 0%, but the Opacity value affects everything on the layer, including layer styles, which means we'd be hiding the stroke as well. "Fill", on the other hand, has no effect on layer styles. It will hide all the contents of a layer except any layer styles you've applied to it, which means that if we set the Fill value to 0%, we'll be hiding the text without hiding the stroke! Let's do that.

Again, make sure the text layer is selected, and then lower the Fill value to 0%. Here's what you should see:

The text is now hidden from view, yet the stoke is still there!

Step 8: Duplicate The Text Layer

Here's where we start adding multiple strokes to the text. Photoshop doesn't allow us to add more than one stroke to a text layer, but nothing says we can't make copies of our text layer and add a different stroke to each copy. And that's exactly what we're going to do.

With the text layer selected in the Layers palette, press "Ctrl+J" (Win) or "Command+J" (Mac) to quickly duplicate the layer. The duplicate will appear directly above the original text layer in the Layers palette.

Once you have the duplicate text layer, click on the original text layer below it to select it. We're going to change the stroke options for the original layer.

Step 9: Change The Stroke Color And Position Of The Original Text Layer

See that round icon with the "f" inside of it on the right of the text layer in the Layers palette? That icon is telling us that we have one or more layer effects (styles) on the layer. Double-click on the icon to bring back the Layer Styles control panel, and select "Stroke" at the bottom of the list of layer styles on the left of the control panel to access the options for the stroke again.

First, change the color of the stroke by clicking on the stroke color selection box in the middle of the control panel, which will bring up Photoshop's Color Picker. Choose a different color and click "OK". I'll choose a blue color for mine.

Once you've chosen a new color for your stroke, change the "Position" of the stroke from "Inside" to "Outside" to move the stroke outside of the letters. You can leave the size of the stroke the same.

Click "OK" when you're done, and you'll see that the stroke on the original text layer is now visible around the stroke from the copied text layer.

We now have two strokes around our text, when normally, we can only have one. But let's not stop there, when adding more strokes to the text is just as easy!

Step 10: Duplicate The Original Text Layer Once Again

Click on the original text layer in the Layers palette to select it if it isn't already selected, and use the keyboard shortcut "Ctrl+J" (Win) or "Command+J" (Mac) to once again duplicate the original text layer, placing a new copy of it directly above the original.

Then, click back on the original text layer to select it once again. We're going to again change the color of the stroke, but this time, we're also going to increase the size of the stroke.

You should now have three text layers in the Layers palette (the original plus two copies above it), and the original text layer should be selected. Click on the layer effects icon on the right of the original text layer in the Layers palette to once again bring back the Layer Styles control panel, and select "Stroke" from the bottom of the list on the left to access the Stroke options.

Step 11: Choose Another New Color For The Stroke And Increase The Stroke Size

Click once again on the stroke color selection box to bring up the Color Picker and choose another new color for the stroke. I'll pick an orange color this time.

Once you've chosen a new color, go up to the top of the Stroke options and double the size of the stroke. My stroke is set to 2px, so I'm going to double it this time, to 4px. By making the stroke larger than the stroke on the layer above it, we'll be able to see this new stroke around the outside of the other stroke, as we'll see in a moment.

Step 12: Repeat As Necessary To Add As Many Strokes As You Like To Your Text

We now have three strokes around our text instead of just one, and we can continue adding as many as we like simply by continuing to duplicate the original text layer, then selecting it again in the Layers palette, going back to the Stroke options, choosing a new color for the stroke, and increasing the size of the stroke so that the new stroke is visible around the stroke on the layer above it.

I'm going to add three more strokes to my text, simply by repeating those same steps, increasing the size of each new stroke so that it's visible around the outside of the previous stroke.

Here's my final result, with six strokes around my text:

The nice thing about this effect is that you can always go back and change the color or size of any of the strokes, simply by clicking on the layer effects icon for that text layer and changing the stroke options.

Here, I've made a simple black and white stroke pattern by changing the colors of the strokes, and resized them a bit to add some interest, which I think looks better than the multi-colored strokes, but it's completely up to you. Feel free to experiment with stroke sizes and colors to come up with your own multi-stroke text effects. The technique remains the same.

And that's our look at how to add multiple strokes to text inside Photoshop!