Bill,
Your problem puzzles me.
First, from your description, it would appear that you have selected the "type mask" tool and not the "type" tool. The color changes and behavior you describe are exactly the way the "type mask" tool works. If you look at your tool bar, and you see a hollow dashed "T" symbol instead of the solid "T" where you select the type tool, the "type mask" tool is selected.
What puzzles me is how you managed to save the file and have text present after re-opening it if the "type mask" tool was the active tool. The "type mask" tool just makes a selection which you would have had to have filled somehow. Otherwise there would be no text.
If you have the "type mask" tool selected, to change it to the regular "type" tool, click and hold the cursor over the "T" symbol until the popup menu appears then select the solid "T" tool. All should be back to normal.
If you have the regular "type" tool selected and not the "type mask" tool and it behaves the way you described, I would suspect the preferences file is corrupted. You will need to delete your preferences file. Reinstalling will not replace the preference file, you have to delete it.
Press and hold Alt+Control+Shift (Windows) or Option+Command+Shift (MAC) immediately after starting PSE. Click Yes, when prompted, to delete the preferences file. You may have to try this a few times if you’re not quick enough. A new preferences file will be used the next time you start PSE.
I see Terry Boyles told you how to delete preferences while I was writing this. Thanks Terry! I would recommend looking at the tool selected as I described above first though. You can also try resetting the tool (click on the first "T" on the option bar and select reset tool) to see if that clears it up. You don’t always need to delete the preference file.
Bob
Dave,
Interesting! It does work that way in indexed mode. I hadn’t tried placing text in an indexed image using PSE before. I usually work in RGB and convert at the end — too constraining otherwise. It also works the same way in bitmap mode.
It’s curious that it leaves the text selected like the text mask tool only filled in. A bug or a feature???
Good catch,
Bob
