Special Edition Using Adobe Creative Suite 2

In addition to the Type tools in the Toolbox and the Options bar, some 16 menu commands and two palettes are designed for use specifically with type. Some of the commands duplicate options found in the Options bar (such as anti-aliasing), which enables you to access the capabilities without having the Type tool active. (Check Spelling and Find and Replace Text are discussed separately, later in this chapter.)

In addition, virtually all other commands and palettes can be used with type in one way or another. Styles can be applied, colors can be changed, transformations are availablethese are just some of the ways that Photoshop enables you to work with type.

Caution

Be aware that paths created from type are very complex. When created from large amounts of text, they can be complex enough to cause output problems for image setters and printers. Unlike Illustrator, Photoshop has no Simplify command to reduce the complexity of paths.

Type Commands Under the Layer Menu

The Type submenu found under the Layer menu offers 13 commands, each of which is available only when a type layer is active in the Layers palette. Two of the commands can be used to convert the editable type into vector paths, either as work paths or as shape layers.

Create Work Path Command

The Create Work Path command converts the type layer from editable type to a work path. The work path consists of all the subpaths used to create the vector type. Photoshop does nothing with the work path, nor does it change your type layer in any way. You can, however, open the Paths palette and save the work path, you can use it to create a layer mask or clipping mask, you can stroke the paths (on a separate layer, not on the original type layer), or you can use the work path as a basis for a selection. Paths created from type can also be exported to Illustrator. In addition, you can edit the individual anchor points of the subpaths to customize the type (see Figure 8.12).

In Figure 8.13, you can see the number of anchor points for the converted type. Note the density of points in the type.

The font used can play a major role in the number of anchor points created when type is converted to work paths. Serif fonts and some script fonts often require a substantially higher number of anchor points to be reproduced as editable paths. Multiply the increased number of anchor points, as shown in Figure 8.14, by the number of letters in a several-word type layer, and you can calculate the increased complexity of the work path.

Convert to Shape Command

Like the command Create Work Path, the Convert to Shape command uses a vector type layer to create paths. However, rather than creating a work path, this command produces a shape layer (see Figure 8.15). The original type layer becomes a layer comparable to those produced by Photoshop Shape tools. A shape layer consists of a filled layer with a layer clipping mask. The clipping mask selectively reveals areas of the filled layer.

The new shape layer is filled with the same color that was originally applied to the type. If more than one color is applied to the type, the shape layer is filled with the color of the first character. When a style has been applied to the type layer, it is retained in the shape layer.

Both Convert to Shape and Create Work Path are available for type that has been warped. The paths that are created, whether work paths or layer clipping paths, follow the contours of the warped type. You can also use these commands with type on a path.

The paths created by the Convert to Shape command are identical to those created by the Create Work Path command. The caution presented earlier also applies to the shape layer pathpaths with too many anchor points can create output problems.

Anti-aliasing Type

Anti-aliasing is the process of adding transitional pixels along the edges of objects in Photoshop images to soften the appearance of curves. Selection tools offer the option of anti-aliasing, but Photoshop's type engine is more sophisticated, offering several levels of anti-aliasing. Because the appearance of type is usually critical, and because different fonts and type sizes have different requirements, Photoshop's type engine offers these anti-aliasing options:

• Anti-Alias None: Smooth the edges of type onscreen. This command removes all anti-aliasing, which can result in jagged-edged type (see Figure 8.16). However, None is often the appropriate choice for very small type and small type at low resolution.

  Figure 8.16. Although the differences in the other four types of anti-aliasing are virtually impossible to spot in the examples in this figure, None (at the upper left) is certainly apparent.

• Anti-Alias Sharp: Select for the lowest amount of anti-aliasing. If the type appears rough or jagged along curves, select another option.

• Anti-Alias Crisp: High-contrast edges take precedence over smoothing when you use the Crisp option.

• Anti-Alias Strong: Add anti-aliasing outside the character in an attempt to maintain the individual character's width.

• Anti-Alias Smooth: Apply the greatest amount of anti-aliasing. If characters become blurry, consider Crisp or Sharp. If the characters seem to lose optical weight (the strokes appear too thin), opt for Strong.

Anti-aliasing makes curves and angled lines appear smoother by adding colored pixels along edges. Think of the transitional pixels as a minigradient, blending from the foreground color to the background color. When you look at black type on a white background, the added pixels are shades of gray (see Figure 8.17).

Keep in mind that anti-aliasing is not always a good idea. Very small type can become quite blurry onscreen when anti-aliased. Especially when you're preparing images for the Web, think carefully about anti-aliasing. Using larger type, particularly the more linear sans serif fonts, such as Arial, can do far more to improve legibility and appearance than anti-aliasing. In addition, if the image is to be saved as a GIF or PNG-8 file, remember that anti-aliasing introduces several new colors to the color table, potentially increasing file size.

Remember, too, that anti-aliasing is not used when you print vector type to a PostScript printer.

One other command deserves special attention. The menu command Layer, Rasterize, Type converts a vector type layer to pixels, and the type is rasterized at the image's resolution. This command is not available if the active layer in the Layers palette is not a type layer (identifiable by the T symbol in place of the layer thumbnail).

The Options Bar and the Type Tools

Photoshop's Options bar includes the capability to save tool presets. This is a great way to speed your work with the Type tool. If you regularly use certain fonts at certain sizes, they can be saved as presets in the Tool Presets Picker at the left end of the Options bar (see Figure 8.18).

Each of the settings in the Options bar can be changed for a preset. The values in the Character and Paragraph palettes are recorded as well. Note that the Horizontal Type tool and the Vertical Type tool have separate presets. The Tool Presets palette is available for use with the Type tool only when the Type tool is selected, but not in the act of adding type to the image. (When you're actually adding type, the preset palette's button is grayed out.)

Immediately to the right of the Tool Presets Picker button is a button that enables you to switch existing type between horizontal and vertical. The button is available when a type layer is active in the Layers palette, regardless of whether the type itself is selected in the window. Swapping the type orientation applies to the entire type layer; you cannot change part of a sentence from horizontal to vertical.

Because the Options bar is contextual, these fields and buttons are available only when the Type tool is active. However, when a type layer is active in the Layers palette, no matter what tool is selected, all these capabilities are available in the Character and Paragraph palettes or using the Layer, Type menu.

With a Type tool active, you can use the Options bar to change the font, font style (when the font has multiple styles available), type size, anti-aliasing, alignment, and color. To the right, the Options bar offers four additional buttons. Just to the right of the color swatch is a button to open the Warp Text dialog box. The only difference between using this button and the menu command Layer, Type, Warp Text is convenience.

To the right of Warp Text is a button that toggles the visibility of the Character and Paragraph palettes. Again, this is comparable to using the appropriate commands in the Window menu to show and hide the palettes. Next are the Cancel Current Edits and Commit Current Edits buttons, which are visible only while a Type tool is in action. Clicking the Cancel button returns the type layer to its previous state (or cancels a new type layer), and the Commit button accepts the type entry or edit. The keyboard shortcuts for these two buttons are Escape and -Return (Mac users) and Ctrl+Enter (Windows users).

The Character Palette

You can show and hide the Character palette (see Figure 8.19) through the Window menu or a button in the Options bar when a Type tool is active. The palette replicates many of the fields and options available in the Options bar for Type tools. Unlike the type-related fields in the Options bar, the Character palette is also available when a non-Type tool is active.

The Character palette can be used in several ways:

• It can be used without any active type layer to establish presets for the Type tools. This affects all type that is entered later until additional changes are made in the Character palette or the Options bar.

  When adding type, you can show and hide the Character and Paragraph palettes by pressing -T (Mac users) or Ctrl+T (Windows users).

• With a type layer active in the Layers palette but no type selected in the image, changes can be made to the entire layer. These changes affect all type on the layer, but only type on that layer. The changes remain in effect in the Character palette and Options bar.

• When some type on a type layer is selected with a Type tool, changes can be made to that portion of the type without affecting the rest of the type layer. Such changes affect only the selected type and remain in effect.

• If a Type tool is active and in use, the Character palette can be used to set the characteristics of type that has not yet been entered. All type entered from that point on has the new characteristics, but previously entered type is unaffected.

In the Style field, you can jump only to styles available for that font. If you press I for italic and the current font doesn't offer italic, you hear an error tone.

The Character palette has 12 fields and 8 style buttons (the 8 buttons are duplicated by commands in the palette's menu). You can navigate among the fields in the Character palette with the Tab key. Tab advances you to the next field, and Shift+Tab returns you to the previous one. Note that this method works even with the Font Family (name) and Font Style fields. In these fields, you can type the first letter of an entry in the pop-up list to jump to it.

You can preview how your type looks in a particular font. Select the type layer in the Layers palette (or select some type with the Type tool). Click once in the Font field of the Character palette or the Options bar. Use the up and down arrow keys on the keyboard to navigate through the fonts, which changes the appearance of the type in the image. Take a snapshot in the History palette first, because each change is registered there.

Font Family

The Font Family pop-up menu includes a list of all fonts available to Photoshop on your system. Font families include Helvetica, Times New Roman, Arial, and so on. All properly installed TrueType, Type 1, and OpenType fonts should appear. This menu selects only the font family.

Font Style

The Font Style pop-up menu shows the font styles and weights built in to the font itself. The options can include Regular or Roman, Bold, Italic, Semibold, Condensed, Expanded, and combinations of these options, such as Semibold Italic. Some fonts, such as Stencil and Techno, are designed at a single weight and style, in which case the menu's arrow is grayed out.

For really large projects, you can work around Photoshop's font size limitation. Enter the text at 1296 points and then choose Edit, Transform, Scale. Make the type larger than you need. You can now return to the Font Size field and enter any point size up to the scaled size.

Font Size

The Font Size field determines how large the font appears in the image. In addition to the preset values in the pop-up menu, you can type any size between 1/10 of a point and 1296 points. By default, Photoshop uses points as the unit of measure for font size. One point is equal to 1/72 inch. You can change the unit in Photoshop's Preferences window. In addition, you can type any unit of measure directly into the field. For example, typing 28 px makes the font size 28 pixels. The other available abbreviations are in (inches), cm (centimeters), pica (picas), and pt (points). Fractional values can be entered as decimals.

Character and Line Spacing

In addition to controlling the appearance of type through fonts, you can determine positioning among characters and between lines of type using these options:

• Leading: Pronounced like the metal rather than the verb to lead, leading determines the distance between lines of type. Like size, leading is normally set in points, but you can enter values in any unit of measure. The pop-up menu defaults to Auto, which sets the leading at 120% of the font size (although this can be changed in the Justification dialog box, opened through the Paragraph palette's menu).The values in the pop-up menu mirror those of the Font Size field. Leading is based strictly on the specified point measurement, from the baseline of one line to the baseline of the line below. Twelve-point leading, regardless of the character's actual size, measures 12 points from the base of one line to the base of the next.

  Make sure that you select the entire line of typeit's not enough to click in a word. Whether you increase or reduce the leading, it's very important that you select the entire line of type.

• Kerning: Kerning is the space between a pair of characters. It affects only those two adjoining characters. Each font is designed with specific kerning for various pairs of characters, applied with the default setting of Metrics, but you can fine-tune the appearance of type with judicious use of kerning. Kerning is especially valuable when letters of different font size adjoin (see Figure 8.20).

  Figure 8.20. The top example shows the default kerning. By manually changing the Kerning value, you can improve the overall appearance, as was done in the bottom example.

  To adjust kerning, select a Type tool and click between the letters that need adjustment (do not select the letters). Use the pop-up menu or enter a numeric value in the Kerning field. Pressing Return (Mac users) or Enter (Windows users) commits the change. If you change your mind while still in the numeric field, you can use -Z (Mac users) or Ctrl+Z (Windows users) to undo the change, or you can press Escape to cancel.

  Kerning is measured in 1/1000 em, a unit of measure based on the particular font's size. One em in a 24-point font is equal to 24 points.

• Tracking: Whereas kerning sets the distance between two letters, tracking adjusts the spacing among a group of selected letters. Tracking is measured like kerning. It can also be applied to an entire type layer by selecting the layer in the Layers palette and then making the change. When tracking is adjusted for a group of letters in a selection, selected letters shift to meet the adjustment. Tracking is often used to spread the letters out in a title or heading.

Reducing the tracking can be an excellent way of squeezing type into a space that's just a little too small. Whether you're working with paragraph or point type, tightening the tracking can be far preferable to scaling or resizing the type.

Changing Scale, Shifting, Coloring, and Styling

Photoshop's Character palette enables you to change the vertical and horizontal scaling of one or more characters as well as to move a character up or down in relation to the baseline. You can also assign a specific color to a character or block of type and add style characteristics not built in to the font, such as bold, italic, strikethrough, and even anti-aliasing. Here are the Character palette fields that govern these options:

• Vertical Scale: Because Photoshop's type is vector based, you can scale it without loss of quality. The Character palette enables you to adjust the height of selected characters from 0% (invisible) to 1000%. The font's default appearance is always 100%. You can apply vertical scaling to selected type or to an entire type layer. Keep in mind that this scaling is independent of the menu command Edit, Transform, Scale. The Character palette still shows 100% after a scale transformation.

• Horizontal Scale: Useful for simulating expanded or compressed font styles, horizontal scaling can be adjusted from 0%1000%. When used proportionally with vertical scaling, the effect is comparable to changing the font size.

  True superscripts and subscripts are typically smaller than the other characters in the text. Shifting the baseline changes the position of the character(s) without changing the size.

• Baseline Shift: The baseline is the imaginary line on which most letters in a font rest. (Some letters, of course, extend well below the baseline, such as g, j, p, q, and y; others extend slightly below the baseline, such as e and o.) Shifting a letter above the baseline creates a superscript; shifting a letter below the baseline produces a subscript (see Figure 8.21).

  Figure 8.21. These "2" examples show a common use of subscript and perhaps an equally familiar superscript.

  Baseline shift can be adjusted by using the Option-Shift keys (Mac users) or Alt+Shift keys (Windows users) with the up and down arrow keys. Adding the or Ctrl key changes the increment from 2 points to 10 points.

• Text Color: The swatch in the Character palette indicates the current type color. Click it to open the Color Picker. Remember that Photoshop allows multiple colors in a single type layer, so each letter can be a different color, if desired. Use a Type tool to select text to change, or select a type layer in the Layers palette to apply the change to the entire layer.

• Style Buttons: From the left, the buttons are Faux Bold, Faux Italic, All Caps, Small Caps, Superscript, Subscript, Underline, and Strikethrough.

  When the selected font offers a bold weight or an italic style, it's definitely preferable to choose it in the Font Style pop-up menu than to apply the faux style. On the flip side, using Photoshop's Superscript and Subscript buttons is usually easier than working with Baseline Shift and then scaling the character. Remember, too, that Photoshop does not allow you to warp type to which faux bold has been applied (see Figure 8.22).

  Figure 8.22. The other faux styles do not interfere with warping.

• Language: Select the dictionary to use for spell checking and hyphenation (paragraph type only). All available dictionaries are listed. Photoshop enables you to mix languages on a type layer. Select a word or words with a Type tool and then select a language in the pop-up menu.

• Anti-Aliasing: You have the option of applying one of four types of anti-aliasing to selected type or a type layer or having no anti-aliasing applied. (Anti-aliasing is discussed in the section "Anti-aliasing Type," earlier in this chapter.)

Remember that the difference between changing kerning and changing tracking is the selection. If the cursor is between two characters and there is no selection, the shortcuts adjust kerning. If one or more letters are selected, the tracking is changed. Otherwise, the keystrokes are identical.

Also keep in mind that adjusting leading might show no effect unless the entire line is selected. If part of a line has leading set to 24 and another part of the same line has a leading of 48, the entire line appears as 48-point leading. Leading is applied to an entire line, but baseline shift can be applied to individual characters.

The Character Palette Menu

The Character palette's menu contains a number of commands that simply duplicate the style buttons found in the palette itself. Faux Bold, Faux Italic, All Caps, Small Caps, Superscript, Subscript, Underline, and Strikethrough show a check mark to the left when the style is applied to the selected type or type layer. To select or deselect a style, choose the style from the menu or use the palette's button.

The palette's other menu commands deserve additional attention:

• Dock to Palette Well: Docking the Character palette to the palette well makes it easily accessible.

• Standard Vertical Roman Alignment and Change Text Orientation: The option Change Text Orientation rotates type. Horizontal type is rotated to vertical, and vertical is rotated to horizontal. However, when the option Standard Vertical Roman Alignment is applied to one or more characters, those characters are reoriented to the top of the image. In Figure 8.23, the word Vertical can be set with the Vertical Type tool or by changing the text orientation of horizontal type. The word Rotated uses the Standard Vertical Roman Alignment option. In the words Mixed Rotation, the M and R have standard alignment; the rest of the characters do not.

  Figure 8.23. Standard Vertical Roman Alignment orients characters to the top of the page.

• Fractional Widths: Adjust spacing between letters on an individual basis, using fractions of a pixel. Although this method often improves legibility for large type (20 points and over), it can cause problems for smaller type sizes. It is especially inappropriate for small type destined for the Web. Fractional widths can be applied only to entire type layers.

• System Layout: Simplify the characteristics of the selected type layer to match as closely as possible the type of Windows Notepad or Apple's SimpleText and TextEdit. This option's settings include Kerning:0, Tracking:0, Vertical Scaling:100%, Horizontal Scaling:100%, Baseline Shift:0, and Anti-Aliasing:None, and it disables the Fractional Widths option. It does not change font, font size, leading, character style settings, color, or dictionary. System Layout is used primarily for screen mockups and user interface elements.

• No Break: Disable hyphenation in paragraph type. It can be applied on a word-by-word basis by selecting the type with a Type tool and then selecting the command from the menu. No Break can be applied to specific letter combinations to force the break to occur elsewhere in the word. It can also be applied to a group of words to force Photoshop to keep those words on the same line. It is not used with point type because all breaks are inserted manually with the Return or Enter key.

  Many non-OpenType fonts have the fi and fl ligatures built in, and you can add them with Shift-Option-5 (Mac users) or Shift+Alt+5 (Windows users) and Shift-Option-6 (Mac users) or Shift+Alt+6 (Windows users). You find ligatures in such common fonts as Times and Geneva, but not in many others, including Arial, Helvetica, and any all-caps fonts.

• Old Style, Ordinals, Swash, and so on: These options are available only for those fonts that have the specific capabilities built in, primarily OpenType fonts. (Fonts with the word Pro in the name are OpenType fonts.) Ligatures are two or three letters combined into one character to improve the look of certain letter combinations (see Figure 8.24). Old Style refers to number characters. These are lowercase numbers, used primarily with lowercase type. Many old-style numerals have ascenders and descenders, as shown in Figure 8.25.

  Figure 8.24. The top two lines compare the same letter combinations without and with ligatures. The lowest line shows old-style numerals with their natural baseline. (The font is Adobe Garamond Pro.)

  Figure 8.25. Some of the Paragraph palette menu commands are not available when point type is selected.

• Reset Character: Return the Character palette (and any selected type or type layer) to the default settings. You can reset selected type or an entire type layer. Either use a Type tool to highlight type on a type layer or select the type layer in the Layers palette. The default settings are not user definable.

The Paragraph Palette

When nested with the Character palette (as it is by default), the Paragraph palette can be shown and hidden by using the button in the Options bar or the -T (Mac users) or Ctrl+T (Windows users) shortcut while editing or inputting type. You can also show and hide the Paragraph palette through the Windows menu. This palette and its menu, shown in Figure 8.25, govern the appearance of a body of type. Photoshop considers a paragraph to be any amount of text followed by a return.

All options in the Paragraph palette can be set individually for each paragraph. The entire paragraph need not be selected; click with the Type tool in a paragraph to indicate that it's the target of the changes. You can highlight one or more characters from several paragraphs to select them all. If you don't click in the text, Photoshop assumes that changes made in the Paragraph palette should be applied to the entire type layer. If no type layer is active in the Layers palette, any changes made are used the next time type is added to the image.

Point type that appears on a single line without a return at the end is considered a paragraph for Photoshop's alignment options.

Across the top of the palette are seven buttons that govern the alignment and justification of paragraphs. What they do to a paragraph of text is apparent from the button icons. The first three buttons are for alignmentarranging the text to have an even margin on the left, have each line centered, or have an even margin on the right. In each case, the text remains within the boundaries of its rectangle.

Photoshop's criteria for justifying text are set in the Justification dialog box opened through the Paragraph palette's menu. (Justification rules are discussed in the next section.) When applied to point type, the left align, center, and right align text buttons determine where the type appears in relation to the spot you clicked with the Type tool.

The four remaining buttons at the top of the Paragraph palette determine justification. Justified text has even margins on both the left and right. These four options govern the last line of a paragraph. When the final line is not fullthat is, it does not naturally stretch from the left to the right marginPhotoshop offers several options. The final line can be aligned left, centered, aligned right, or justified. To justify the final line, space is added between words and, if necessary, letters. Should the final line be substantially shorter than the others, the amount of whitespace added can be unsightly and interfere with legibility (see Figure 8.26).

The second section of the Paragraph palette governs indenting. Entire paragraphs can be indented to the left, to the right, or both (the upper pair of buttons), and you can specify indenting separately for the first line of a paragraph (the lower button in the middle section of the palette). By default, the unit of measure for indenting is points. That can be changed in Photoshop's preferences under Units & Rulers. The Paragraph palette uses the unit of measure specified under Type. Figure 8.27 shows how indenting can be used effectively. (The first lines of the subparagraphs are indented with a negative number to shift them to the left.)

Also visible in Figure 8.28 is paragraph spacing. Using the lower set of buttons in the Paragraph palette, you can specify spacing before a paragraph (left), or space can be added after a paragraph (right). Like indenting, the unit of measure specified for type in the Preferences is used.

At the bottom of the Paragraph palette is a check box that turns hyphenation on and off in the paragraph. Like the other Paragraph palette options, hyphenation can be set on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis. Specific rules for hyphenation are set by using the Paragraph palette's menu command of the same name (discussed in the following section).

The Paragraph Palette Menu

Several commands appear in the Paragraph palette's menu. Like most palettes, the top command, Dock to Palette Well, enables you to add the palette to the palette well.

Roman Hanging Punctuation is an advanced typesetting option. With paragraph type, certain punctuation marks fall outside the margins to the left and right, creating a cleaner look to the margins (see Figure 8.28).

The Justification dialog (shown in Figure 8.29) controls how Photoshop justifies paragraphs. Making changes here enables you to make tiny adjustments to how Photoshop spaces words and letters to create full justification.

Word Spacing establishes minimum, maximum, and target amounts for space between words. A value of 100% represents the font's built-in spacing plus any changes you've made to tracking in the Character palette. Values can range from 0%133%.

Letter Spacing determines how much change Photoshop can make to spaces between letters within words. Justifying relies on letter spacing only after word spacing has been applied and only if necessary. Although percents are shown in the dialog, the unit of measure is actually fractions of an em. Inputting 0% in all three fields turns off letter spacing.

The default values for justification in Photoshop CS2 are appropriate for most purposes. Make changes to the settings when you need to tweak the type a little, perhaps to make a specific amount of text fit in a specific area or to adjust the overall appearance of the text.

Glyph Scaling, a method of last resort, actually changes the width of individual characters to create justification. Sacrificing the appearance of the letters for the appearance of the margins is rarely a good idea. A value of 100% represents the original width of each character.

At the bottom of the Justification dialog, you can specify what percentage of a font's size will be used for the Auto setting in the Character palette's Leading pop-up menu.

The Hyphenation dialog, shown in Figure 8.30, is opened with the Hyphenation command on the Paragraph palette's menu. It controls what rules Photoshop applies when breaking words at the end of a line. Photoshop uses the assigned dictionary to determine where a word is hyphenated; these settings determine whether a word is hyphenated at all.

You use the Hyphen Limit field to control how many consecutive lines can end with hyphens and the Hyphenation Zone field to establish a distance from the right margin in which words will not be hyphenated. For example, if the preceding word enters the designated zone, the following word is moved in its entirety to the following line. Likewise, if a word to be broken does not have a dictionary-defined break within the zone, the word remains unhyphenated.

If you deselect the Hyphenate Capitalized Words check box at the bottom of the dialog box, words that begin with a capital letter cannot be hyphenated. This includes proper nouns as well as words that start sentences. (The possibility that a word is long enough to both start a sentence and require hyphenation in Photoshop indicates very narrow columns or a very long word.) This setting has no effect on type set in all caps or entered with the Caps Lock key locked down.

The difference between the Adobe Single-line Composer and the Adobe Every-line Composer commands is the approach to hyphenation. Single-line looks at one line, decides the appropriate hyphenation, and then moves to the next line. Every-line examines all the selected text before making decisions, which usually produces fewer word breaks and a generally more pleasing look to the text.

The Reset Paragraph command restores the Paragraph palette to its default settings.