Outline
by Nick Ustinov

That's too simple to be called a trick, you know. In any case -  I put this online because I was getting lot of requests. If you are using Photoshop 3.0.x, then after you type something, don't deselect it, choose foreground color you want stroke to be and Edit>Stroke.... In case you have Photoshop 4.0, after you type something do Select>Load Selection>Layer x Transparency. Then as a next step hit Ctrl-E to merge down the layer (Cmd-E on Mac) and go to Edit>Stroke.. If you still need the text as a layer, go to Layer Palette (Window>Show Layers..) and uncheck the preserve transparency checkbox before stroking (in this case you don't have to merge the layer down :-)