Newbie who needs help with PSP8

Hey, I have a small problem... I can't get my text on anything to be solid. With the stroke width at 0.0 pixels, it's just white, with it at 1.0 pixles, it only has a bit of color around the edges. The higher I get, the more color it gets, yes, but also the more blurry and tough to read it gets...

If anyone could teach me how to do that, I would love them forever. And how to get the brushes I downloaded to work...