Does anybody have any good suggestions on how I can layout a piece of art; in this case a text slogan dead center on the canvas - For example, a slogan like "Otaku 'R' US".

By clicking Contro+R you get the ruler to show. Then using the move tool, click in the left ruler area and drag a guideline to the center of your canvas. If your text is centered aligned you can "snap" it to the guideline.
If not, add 2 more at equal margins from the canvas edges to about where the right and left edges of your text will be. Use the "Info" and it will tell you exactly where you are placing the guidelines.
Reply if any questions or this doesn't make sense.

Jim

Thanks for the advice...

On another note, how do I snap text to the guideline if said text is already centered?

http://tutortanith.com/positionImage.htm

When Snap is activated, you can choose what to snap to. Make sure Guides is activated.

What I mean by the "text aligned centered" is by paragraph style: left-justified, centered or right-justified. When "centered" the anchor point of the text is in the center, thus it will snap to the guide that is centered on your canvas.

HTH,
Jim

I think I've got it now...

Also, when doing stuff like this, should I view the canvas at 25% or 50% or 100%?

To set a guideline exactly at a certain number, like 5 inches on a 10 inch wide 300 dpi project, you should have zoom at 100% to fine tune it exactly. The rulers will show at any zoom level, use the Info palette as you're moving things to get a numeric readout. You can zoom out when its snap time.

If you want to set a guideline at an exact location in Photoshop the simplest way to do it is click View, click New Guide, type in the location you want the guide - you can type it in pixels e.g. 1500 px or inches e.g. 7.5 in.

thank you for the advice... sorry if i was crank in another thread, it's that i had an seizure earlier and am still recovering from it...

That's OK, I was being unnecessarily cranky myself.

"how I can layout a piece of art; in this case a text slogan dead center on the canvas"

Joining the party late, but ..

I'm all for quick & easy.
Link your background & the text.
Hit align vertical & align horizontal.
Done.

quote:

"how I can layout a piece of art; in this case a text slogan dead center on the canvas"

Joining the party late, but ..

I'm all for quick & easy.
Link your background & the text.
Hit align vertical & align horizontal.
Done.

That is a great tip if you have a layer locked as background. Most people designing for CP images will have only layers, no background. In a text only image there will only be a single layer with text. The align menu isn't even available. In most cases for apparel good design means there is no layer that is filled to the full extent of the canvas. Align will only center on canvas if one of the included layers has color that includes some part that goes edge to edge both vertically and horizontally - and even then if you have pixels outside the canvas (a very common occurrence) the center may not be where you expect.

I remember the good old days when you could drag a guide in (CS1?) and it would automagically snap to center even on a blank canvas. Seems it's another feature that disappeared or maybe I just don't know how to turn it on. But that was handy as heck.

Doesn't seem to snap to the center. HOwever - found something I hadn't thought of - right click on the ruler and change the ruler to percentage Center is at 50% - not as god as snap but no thinking required.

Hah! Cool, Diane. Never noticed the % there. Thanx! Does make life easier since thinking is not my forte.
You can do view - new guide and set it there by percentage (V or H) but that's a PITA too. I sure do miss the snapping. Have to wonder if it was ever on a Mac. I know there's a lot of features in windows that just don't exist on Macs.