Formatting TextFigure 14-16: Attention Goldilocks: The leading on the left is too little, the doc

605  :    Formatting Text Figure 14-16: Attention Goldilocks: The leading on the left is too little, the leading on the right is too much, but the leading in the middle—set to Auto—is just right (for this situation, anyway; auto leading isn’t perfect for every project). As you can see, leading can make a design statement; ask yourself which one your typography needs to make. Leading is measured in points just like text, though it includes the point size of the text itself. Leading that’s equal to the point size of text is called solid leading, which creates lines of text that almost touch (resulting in spacing that’s somewhere between what’s shown in the left and middle of Figure 14-16). Photoshop’s leading is set to Auto (unless you change it), which is approximately 120 percent of the text’s point size (see Figure 14-16, middle). For example, 10-point type has an auto leading of 12 points. In the Character panel, the leading control (labeled with two As stacked on top of each other) lives directly beneath the font style pop-up menu. You can adjust the leading of several lines of text at once or one line at a time. To adjust the leading of multiple lines of text on the same layer, select the offending Type layer in the Layers panel (there’s no need to highlight the text), and then choose a point size from the leading pop-up menu, or type directly into the text field. (Better yet, hover your cur- sor above the field’s label and use the handy scrubby cursor.) If you want to adjust the leading of a single line of text on a Type layer that contains many lines, select the text first (page 586) and then change the leading. Tip: You can also use keyboard shortcuts to change leading. Select the text and then press and hold Option (Alt on a PC) and tap the up or down arrow keys to change the leading in increments of 2 points; add � (Ctrl) to change it in increments of 10 points. To set leading back to Auto, press Shift-Option-�-A (Shift+Alt+Ctrl+A). Learning to kern To kern means to adjust the amount of space between pairs of letters. Poorly kerned (or unkerned) text looks funky and can be distracting to the reader, as you can see in Figure 14-17, top. A lack of kerning is perhaps the biggest clue that text has been set nonprofessionally (nothing exposes a typographical novice faster!). Admittedly, 606 P CS: T M M Formatting Text the problem is more noticeable with less expensive—or free—fonts (like Frolicking Ferrets), scripts, and decoratives (especially fonts that mimic handwriting, like the one in the figure). Figure 14-17: Top: Here’s some text borrowed from a BMW motorcycle ad in a naked, unkerned state. Notice how several of the letters appear too close together? The punctuation is even worse—it’s practically in a different Zip code. Bottom: After a little kerning, the text looks normal instead of helter- skelter, so readers can focus on what the copy says instead of the weird spacing. (Get it? My hairstyl- ist is my motorcycle helmet? Oh, never mind.) Over in the Character panel, the kerning button is marked by the letters AV and two arrows pointing in opposite directions. The numbers in the kerning pop-up menu range from positive to negative; positive values increase space, and negative values de- crease space. Kerning values are measured in 1/1000 em; an em is a relative measure- ment based on the point size of the type. For example, if the type size is 12-point, 1 em equals 12 points. Since you can create type of various sizes, this measurement ensures that your kerning is always based on the type size you’re currently working with. Note: Though Photoshop tries to kern text automatically, it’s best to do it manually as described here. For more on auto vs. manual kerning, see the box on page 608. Because the amount of space each letter needs (on either side) differs according to which letter comes next—an A can tuck in closer to a V than it can to an M, for example—you’ll want to kern each space individually. Press T to grab the Type tool and position the cursor in the first problem area you spot (in Figure 14-17, that’s be- tween the a and v of have—they’re way too close together). To widen the space, pick a positive value from the kerning pop-up menu or drag the scrubby cursor gently to the right (you can also type a value into the kerning field). If you want to narrow the space, pick a negative value or drag the scrubby cursor to the left. Tip: There’s a keyboard shortcut for changing kerning, but you need to place your cursor between the let- ters you want to adjust first. Press and hold Option (Alt on a PC) while tapping the left or right arrow key to change the kerning in increments of 20. Add the � key (Ctrl) to change it in increments of 100. 607  :    Formatting Text Track it out If you want to change the spacing between all letters in a word by the same amount, you need to adjust tracking. This adjustment is great for when you’re trying to make text fit into a small area. Also, vast amounts of tracking, as shown in the word “conference” in Figure 14-18, can be a useful design trick. Like kerning, tracking is measured in 1/1000 em. To make an adjustment, you must first select the word(s) you want to track and then trot over to the Character panel and look for the setting marked with an AV with a double-headed arrow beneath it. Pick a value from the pop-up menu, enter it manually, or use the scrubby cursor you get by hovering your cursor above the AV. Figure 14-18: Tracking is a great way to make a word fit into a small space, or fill a big space. In this example, the word “conference” has been tracked out to stretch from the g in “digital” to the last a in “camera.” Because the large amount of space be- tween the letters is uniform and obviously deliberate, it becomes a useful design element (and it’s also one of the few ways all-caps text looks good—the extra space makes it easier to read). Tip: As you might suspect, there’s a keyboard shortcut for this one too. To adjust tracking in increments of 20, select some text and then press and hold Option (Alt on a PC) while tapping the left or right arrow key. Add the � key (Ctrl) to change tracking in increments of 100. Doin’ the baseline shift Text’s baseline is the invisible line on which its letters sit. Changing it can make a character appear higher or lower than other characters on the same line (see Figure 14-19). This is called baseline shift, and you can think of it as an exaggerated super- or subscript control (as in dollar signs and degree symbols). Remember the section back on page 594 about type on a path? Baseline shift was used to scoot the text above the path. It’s also helpful when you want to create fractions, use initial caps (shown in Figure 14-19), or manually adjust characters in a decorative font. 608 P CS: T M M Formatting Text Figure 14-19: Notice how the big, fancy D is lower than the rest of the word “diva”? That’s because its baseline shift has been decreased to –30 points. To adjust the baseline of a character, word, or phrase, select the text you want to tweak and then head to the Character panel (if you don’t select anything, the adjust- ment will be applied to the next thing you type). Use the baseline shift setting (it’s marked with a big A and little a) to move the text up or down by picking a positive or negative value (respectively) from the pop-up menu, by entering a value manually, or by using the scrubby cursor. Tip: Once you’ve selected some text, press Shift-Option (Shift+Alt on a PC) while tapping either the up or down arrow on your keyboard to shift the baseline in increments of 2 points. Add the � key (Ctrl) to shift it in increments of 10 points. poWeR USeRS’ CLINIC Auto vs. Manual Kerning Ever helpful, Photoshop tries to kern text for you. Perched at the top of the kerning pop-up menu in the Character panel are two auto-kerning methods: Metrics and Optical. Metrics kerning is the most common method. It tells Photo- shop to adjust the space between letters according to their kern pairs—the amount of spacing between letter pairs (like Tr, To, Ta, and so on) that the designer specified when creating the font. Photoshop applies metrics kerning auto- matically anytime you create or import text (unless you’ve changed this menu’s setting). However, some fonts contain little or no info about kern pairs, but you won’t know that until you start typing. So, if the kerning looks really bad, Adobe recommends that you manually switch to optical kerning, where Photoshop adjusts the space according to characters’ shapes instead. Optical kerning is also helpful when you use more than one font (or font size) in a single word. The best method of all, though, is to kern text manually as described on page 605. It takes more time, but the results are well worth it. 609  :    Formatting Text Other character options The Character panel is chock-full of other formatting controls. Just remember that, to apply any of the formatting discussed in this section, you first have to select some text. As shown in Figure 14-15 (page 604), the Character panel is where you can turn on faux styles (page 582), like bold and italic (they’re not built into the font, but faked by Photoshop instead). Feel free to use faux styles if you’re creating a piece for online use or at-home printing, but it’s best to stay away from the faux stuff if the project is bound for a professional printer, as they can cause unexpected results. Problems include jagged text (due to rasterization); characters that refuse to print (which will cause Photoshop to substitute another font); or a PostScript error, which can halt printing altogether. Among the other styles offered by the Character panel for your formatting pleasure are underline (which places a line under the text), and strikethrough (which places a line through the text). Tip: The keyboard shortcut for bolding text (after it’s selected) is Shift-�-B (Shift+Ctrl+B on a PC), for italicizing, it’s Shift-�-I (Shift+Ctrl+I), for underlining it’s Shift-�-U (Shift+Ctrl+U), and for adding a strike- through, it’s �-Shift-Ctrl-? (Ctrl+Shift+?). Whew! The other options in the Character panel are: • Horizontal/Vertical Scale. These two settings (which stretch or shrink text horizontally or vertically) have the power to squish, cram, and spread type to within an inch of its life, rendering it utterly unreadable and unrecognizable, so use these options at your own risk! If you’re trying to save space, a better solution is to adjust kerning or tracking (or both). If you’re trying to fill space, increase the type size or tracking instead. Tip: If you’ve played around with the scale of your text, you can instantly get it back to normal with the flick of a keyboard shortcut. Reset the vertical scale to 100 percent by selecting your text and then pressing Shift-Option-�-X (Shift+Alt+Ctrl+X on a PC), or reset the horizontal scale to 100 percent by pressing Shift- �-X (Shift+Ctrl+X). • All Caps/Small Caps. If you need to switch lowercase text to uppercase, just select the text and then press the All Caps button (marked with TT). But keep in mind that, unless you’re creating a small amount of text and perhaps tracking it out as shown in Figure 14-18, using all caps is a bad idea. They’re extremely hard to read because the words all take on the same blocky shape. Besides, they tend to insinuate screaming (LIKE THIS), and that’s not very reader friendly. The Small Caps button (marked with a big T and a smaller T) isn’t much better 610 P CS: T M M Formatting Text as it creates smaller versions of the same, hard-to-read all caps. The keyboard shortcut for all caps is Shift-�-K (Shift+Ctrl+K on a PC); for small caps, it’s Shift-�-H (Shift+Ctrl+H). • Super and Subscript. The Superscript and Subscript buttons cause the base- line and point size of the selected character(s) to change. (If you don’t have any text selected, the next character you type will be superscript or subscript.) Superscript increases the baseline shift so the character sits above other text in the same line (great for trademark symbols such as ™ and ®), while subscript decreases the baseline shift so the character sits below other text (perfect for footnotes and scientific or mathematical text). Tip: The keyboard shortcut for superscript (which you can use after selecting text) is �-Shift-plus (Ctrl+Shift+plus on a PC). For subscript, press �-Shift-Option-plus (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+plus). • Language. The language pop-up menu at the bottom of the Character panel won’t translate text for you; it merely means that Photoshop will adjust spell checks and hyphenation to suit the selected language. The 40 or so choices in- clude everything from Bulgarian to Ukrainian. (The box on page 600 has info on spell checking.) • Anti-Aliasing. The Character panel’s anti-aliasing control (in the lower-right corner of the panel) works just like the anti-aliasing control on the Options bar, described on page 602. But wait—that’s not all! The Character panel has even more settings hidden in its menu, and they’re all covered in the next few pages. Orienting text The Character panel is jam-packed with formatting options, and even though Adobe managed to cram an astonishing amount of stuff into this one panel, they couldn’t fit everything. The solution was to stuff the remaining features into a menu tucked away in the upper-right corner of the Character panel (circled in Figure 14-20). When you open it, Photoshop unveils a long list of options that you won’t use all that often, but they occasionally come in handy. The first couple of options determine how text is oriented (the direction in which it’s headed): • Change Text Orientation. This menu item lets you switch horizontally-aligned text to vertical, and vice versa. Just select the Type layer you want to swap, not the text itself. 611  :    Formatting Text Figure 14-20: To open the Character panel’s menu, click the but- ton circled here. This menu also unlocks the secret typographic extras of Open- Type fonts (shown here in its expanded view), which are discussed in the fol- lowing pages. Just for fun, try selecting some text and then choose each option to see if it has any effect! • Standard Vertical Roman Alignment. This is a fun one, though it works only on vertical type. Instead of the letters flowing from top to bottom, perched atop each other, they’ll flow from left to right as if they were turned on their side. (Picture the word “Vertical” back in Figure 14-5 [page 584] lain down on its side.) Another way to create this effect is to use the Free Transform tool (page 95) to spin the type around 90 degrees. Alternate ligatures and other fancy flourishes These goodies are reserved for OpenType fonts only (PostScript and TrueType fonts don’t have them). As discussed on page 579, this format lets font designers include alternative character designs and all manner of glyphs into a font. Some have alter- nate ligatures (two or more characters that have been designed into one for better flow—like an  or  combination), fancy flourishes, a whole set of ornaments, and more. These embellishments are perfect for creating fancy initial caps, formatting numbers, and for adding a bit of typographic pizzazz, as shown in Figure 14-21. Choose OpenType from the Character panel’s menu and Photoshop displays the extras in yet another menu (shown in Figure 14-20). Be aware, though, that some OpenType fonts have extras and some don’t; if one of the menu items is grayed out, that means it doesn’t exist in that particular font. Here’s a quick rundown of what you might encounter in the OpenType menu: • Standard Ligatures are alternate character designs for certain letter combina- tions that tend to touch—like , , , , and . 612 P CS: T M M Formatting Text Figure 14-21: The top line of text is in standard Adios Script Pro, a truly gorgeous OpenType font. The middle line was created using Contextual Alternates, which summons alternate letter designs depending upon where the letter falls within a word. The last line was created using the extra-flourishy Swash option. • Contextual Alternates substitutes certain letterforms for others that join to- gether more fluidly. This option is common on script fonts because it makes the letters look like cursive handwriting. • Discretionary Ligatures are replacements for letter pairs like ct, st, and ft. They tend to have a bit more flourish than their standard ligature counterparts. • Swash will substitute a standard character for one with an exaggerated stroke (think calligraphy). • Oldstyle prompts Photoshop to use smaller numerals than normal; some even sit below the baseline (page 607) so they blend more smoothly into the flow of text. Use this option when you want your numbers to appear more elegant, but not when numbers need to line up in a stack, as in an annual report. • Stylistic Alternates are characters that have extra bits of decoration here and there, as shown at the bottom of Figure 14-21. They’re for your visual pleasure only (and, of course, that of the font designer). • Titling Alternates calls to action a special set of all capitals designed to be used at large sizes, for things like titles (hence the name). • Ornaments are symbols or pictographs (like WingDings). • Ordinals decreases the size of letters appearing next to numbers and increases their baseline shift so they look like this: 2 nd , 3 rd , 4 th , and so on. • Fractions converts a number-slash-number combination (like this: 1/2) into a real fraction (like this: ½). 613  :    Formatting Text To apply the special OpenType features to existing text, you have to select the text using one of the methods described on page 586 and then choose an item from the OpenType menu. If you don’t have any text selected, Photoshop will apply the feature to the next character you type. Fractional widths Also in the Character panel’s menu, the fractional widths command rounds char- acter widths to the nearest part of a pixel instead of the normal whole pixel. This setting is automatically turned on because it usually tightens text spacing, making it more visually pleasing (like kerning, discussed on page 605). However, Adobe recommends turning this option off if you’re working with anything smaller than 20-point text because the tighter spacing can make small text hard to read. When it’s turned off, Photoshop uses whole-pixel spacing, which gives each character a bit more breathing room and keeps them from running into each other. Note: You can’t apply the fractional widths command to individual characters; it’s an all-or-nothing, “everything on the Type layer is affected” kind of thing. To use whole-pixel increments for the entire docu- ment, choose System Layout (explained next) from the Character panel’s menu. System Layout The System Layout option will revert your text to the way your particular operating system displays it—similar to what you might see in TextEdit on a Mac or WordPad on a PC. It switches character widths to whole pixels (as discussed in the previous section) and turns off anti-aliasing (page 602). This is a good option to use when designing text for the Web, because the extra space and letter sharpness makes super small text a little easier to read. No Break When it comes to hyphenation, some words are meant to be broken and some aren’t (as shown in Figure 14-22). To prevent such typographical gaffes from happening to you, select the word(s) you want to keep together and then select No Break from the Character panel’s menu. This forces Photoshop to reflow the text so the word doesn’t end up sliced in two. For more on hyphenation, see page 616. Reset Character If you’ve gone a bit overboard with formatting and want to return the formatted text to its original glory, select the text and then choose Reset Character from the Character panel’s menu. If you don’t have an active text selection, the newly restored character settings will affect the next thing you type. 614 P CS: T M M Formatting Text Figure 14-22: This is what happens when good hyphenation goes bad. The fix is to highlight the offending word and choose No Break from the Character panel’s menu. Close and Close Tab Group Close and Close Tab Group were new in Photoshop CS4. Choose Close to make the currently active panel disappear (like the Character panel), or Close Tab Group to make a whole group of related panels disappear (both the Character and Paragraph panels, for example). See Chapter 1 for more on panels and docks. The Paragraph Panel The Paragraph panel, shown in Figure 14-23, doesn’t have anywhere near the number of options as the Character panel, though that doesn’t make them any less important. Paragraph formatting controls alignment, hyphenation, justification, indentation, and spacing. Read on for a full discussion of each. Not one to be left out, the Paragraph panel also has a menu containing features that just wouldn’t fit anywhere else (Figure 14-24); they’re discussed in the following pages. [...]... WhatTheFont Just send them an image of the text and they’ll tell you what the closest matching font is How cool is that?! • www.fontsite.com If you want professional fonts at a fraction of their usual price, this is the place to go • www.macworld.com/topics/create Jay Nelson, founder and publisher of DesignToolsMonthly.com (another fabulous resource for graphic designers), writes this monthly font column for... the Layers panel (see page 113 for more on layer masks) Next, open the mask by Option-clicking (Alt-clicking on a PC) the mask’s thumbnail in the Layers panel Your document should go completely white because the mask is empty 5 Paste the texture into the mask and, if necessary, reposition the text, mask, or both with the Move tool Once you’re in the layer mask, press �-V (Ctrl+V on a PC) to paste the. .. Transform (Don’t forget to press Return—Enter on a PC— when you’re done rotating each letter.) For added fun, you can use the Path Selection tool to move each letter so they overlap just a touch Next, use the same tool to select all the letters and then click the Exclude Overlapping Shape Areas button in the Options bar This makes the color disappear from the overlapping areas (as shown here), letting the. .. then press V to grab the Move tool (which makes sense because in this case, the Type layers will move) and poof!—a whole slew of alignment tools appears in the Options bar Click the one you want to apply and the selected layers dutifully jump to the left, right, or center These alignment tools are covered more fully on page 96 Hyphenation and justification Known to page-layout pros as H&J, these controls... Justify last left This setting spreads text so that the left and right edges are perfectly straight (even on both sides), with the last line of the paragraph left aligned (meaning it doesn’t reach across to the right margin), like the text in this book The keyboard shortcut for this kind of justification is to select your text and then press Shift-�-J (Shift+Ctrl+J on a PC) Tip: Justification is affected... different alignments on lines of text on the same Type layer First, activate the Type tool and the Type layer you want to work on If you want to align a single line of text, click anywhere within that line and then press the appropriate alignment button in the Options bar or the Paragraph panel To align all the text on that layer, select it using one of the methods described on page 586, and then click an... filter you used with the same settings, press �-F (Ctrl+F on PC) You can also click the Filter menu; the last filter shows up as the first item on the list To summon the filter’s dialog box, press �-Option-F (Ctrl+Alt+F) Artistic If you want to make your image resemble a painting or a cartoon, turn to the filters in this category Their special purpose is to mimic real-world artistic effects created... icon at the bottom of the Channels panel Then, at the top of the panel, click the visibility eye next to the RGB channel (also called the composite channel—see page 189) Your entire image takes on the Quick Mask mode’s red overlay (page 176), which lets you create your selection by using a big soft, fluffy brush Don’t panic: the red overlay is temporary—your image won’t end up pink 3 Grab the Brush tool... explains the difference) 616 Photoshop CS5: The Missing Manual Formatting Text Photoshop’s hyphenation feature is automatically turned on, but you can turn it off using the checkbox at the bottom of the Paragraph panel, or by selecting the text and pressing �-Shift-Option-H (Ctrl+Shift+Alt+H on a PC) However, you have to turn justification on manually by selecting one of the following options: • Justify... well, though this may not always be the case If, for example, you want to move the text independent of the mask, or vice versa, you have to unlink them first Just click the little chain icon that lives between the type and layer mask thumbnails in the Layers panel, and the chain vanishes Next, activate the Move tool and then click the thumbnail of whatever you want to reposition—either the image or its .   Formatting Text Figure 14-16: Attention Goldilocks: The leading on the left is too little, the leading on the right is too much, but the leading in the middle—set to Auto is just. extra-flourishy Swash option. • Contextual Alternates substitutes certain letterforms for others that join to- gether more fluidly. This option is common on script fonts because it makes the letters. Paragraph formatting controls alignment, hyphenation, justification, indentation, and spacing. Read on for a full discussion of each. Not one to be left out, the Paragraph panel also has a menu containing