Create a spiral text effect in Photoshop

Published on April 21, 2024

Text spiral with Actions

In this blog I will show you how to create a text spiral with outline in Adobe Photoshop!

Rather watch the video with instructions? Then click here to open the video or scroll down to the end of this page.

Text with outline

First create a new file. My file is 1920 x 1080 pixels, but you can also use a different size.

Select the horizontal type tool. Pick a font and text color and type your text.

Then select the move tool and press CTRL+T to activate free transform. You can now resize and/or move the text.

Click on the fx icon below your layers and select ‘stroke‘. You can find the settings I used in the image below. You can also use a different stroke color.

Right click on the text layer and select ‘rasterize layer style‘. You can’t adjust the stroke after doing this, so make sure everything is good first.

Spiral text with Actions

Go to ‘Window > Actions‘.

Create a new action and name your action. Then press ‘record‘.

Press CTRL+J to duplicate the text layer. Then select the bottom text layer.

Now press CTRL+T to activate free transform. Connect the width and the height (with the chain icon). Lower the width to 95%, the height should be 95% too now.

Rotate the text 5°. Then click on the ✓ icon.