PicMonkey Mondays: Inserting Text Onto Photos

Edit: This is an old post with outdated instructions. The good news is that PicMonkey is much more user-friendly than it was way back in 2013. Have fun playing with your pictures!

I frequently get asked what program I use to insert text onto my photos and how I make my own graphics. Over the next 4 weeks I will walk you through the program I use: PicMonkey.com. I know that there are lots of programs to choose from; this is what works for me. I am not an expert on the subject but I hope that this series sheds a little light, and I do have a few insider tips and tricks.

The collage from my son’s 1st birthday party was a fun way to remember and document what a little stinker he is.

I use PicMonkey professionally and personally almost every day. While I am primarily writing this for my peers here in the food blogging world, I think there is something for everyone at PicMonkey whether you are seeking to make your images more Pinterest-friendly or whether you want to tell a story in your family photo album. Throwing together a quick collage and adding text right onto your photos is perfect for all of you scrapbooking moms (and dads?) out there! By making a few simple edits you can jazz up your family photos and you don’t need to buy Lightroom or Photoshop to make significant changes.

Please leave me your questions in the comments section of this post. You can see the topics that we’re going to cover over the next 4 Mondays and I would love to be able to address any specific questions you may have.

Let’s get started! First you are going to open up PicMonkey and click on “Edit a Photo.”

You’re in! Woo hoo! You are on the first tier of menu boards where you can do some basic edits like cropping, rotating, adjusting exposure, etc. For this tutorial I want you to go to the 4th tier of menu boards that will take you to where you can insert text onto your photo. It is represented by the letter P. Click on the P. We’re going to add some text to this really weird photo I took while on vacation.

Boom! Look at all of those font options! Use the scroll bar to the right of the fonts to see all of your options. Click where it says Add Text.

Didact Gothic is chosen for you by default but can be changed at any point. I chose Arial Black. A little text box will pop up. Click on it and begin typing.

I typed in something awesome and moved the box into the upper right corner.

Then because I am a font snob I decided that Marcelle Script was more my style. Make sure you highlight the text in your box then you can click on fonts until you find the one that works for you.

When you highlight the text in your box a little Text Editing box will pop up. From here you can center your text, use the slider to change the size, flip your text, or adjust the color. Here you can see I changed the color to pink.

INSIDER TIP: If you spend 7 minutes finding just the right shade of pink you may want to jot down its number on a little piece of paper. I actually have a notebook where I write down all of my favorite colors so that I can come back to it months later when I want to use that same color again. Next time you can just type in the number for the color you want instead of spending another 7 minutes finding that perfect shade. Here you can see that I used FF79C1.

Also take note of the Fade slider. This is how you can get a really light text color if you are watermarking your photos.

If  you right click the text box you will get a whole lot of awesome options. Today I’m talking about the Duplicate Text option. Click this if you want to duplicate the exact same content in the box. You can duplicate it and set the color to something else and create a shadow like I did on these July 4th Layered Drinks.

** MAC USERS-  Control +click will bring up this dialogue.**

 

INSIDER TIP: Here I selected Duplicate Text because I wanted to add text somewhere else on my photo but I wanted to keep it the same size and color. You can of course just click the Add Text button on the left sidebar again but I wanted to carry over the same formatting without having to recreate it.

You can see that I typed in my new text but the formatting carried over. Then I decided to change the font to Luckiest Guy. Again, just make sure you have the text in the box highlighted then you can try on fonts all day long if you want.

Okay- you did it! You can walk away from this photo and feel awesome about yourself.

Or you can get all choose-y like I did and keep playing. I decided that I wanted “my” to be white instead of pink so I deleted the word “my.”

Right click and Duplicate Text (because I want the formatting to stay the same).

Highlight the text and replace it with “my.”

Change the color to white (FFFFFF).

Move it into position.

Change your mind. Oh wait- here I am being me again. I still didn’t like the look so I grabbed the text box with the “Bee Valentine” in it and made it bigger while keeping “my” the smaller size. Then I moved the box to offset it a little bit. These little edits (like using multiple fonts, colors, and sizes of text) can really set your images apart from others especially on Pinterest where everything is visual.

Then I decided that I really liked how the whole pink and white thing was working for me so I repeated the process on the second box.

Erase “Sure Thing,” from the top box, and “Honey” from the bottom box.

Line them up and Bam! You just inserted some pretty sweet text onto your photo. Multiple sizes, colors, and fonts don’t scare you!

Save it to your computer and go eat a cookie. No, really. Go eat a cookie or all of your hard work will disappear. Well, maybe not but I’m not taking any chances. Someone please pass the milk…

What do you think? You can do this! Have you been wanting an easy way to add a watermark to your photos? This is your homework- upload a photo, insert your Blog Name, slide the fade to what works for your watermark (usually about 50%), and come back and let me know how you did.

Please leave me any questions or sing my praises in the comments section below. Just don’t be a Hater because I cry easily  Next Monday we’re talking Collages.

Don’t forget to check out all of the tutorials in this 4 Part series.

Inserting Text    |    Creating a Collage    |    Using Overlays    |    Creating Graphics

Disclosure: I told the awesome people at PicMonkey.com that I was putting this series together and they gave me a free Royale membership and said good luck. 😉 All opinions are 100% my own (and I had actually already bought and paid for my own membership because I heart PicMonkey so much). Everything I’m showing you in this 4 week series can be done for free without access to any Royale effects.