Creating effects with typographical tools in Photoshop

The type tools pretty much do as their moniker suggests — create type of varying sorts. The Horizontal Type tool and Vertical Type tool create regular old type, whereas the Mask Type tools create selections in the shape of letters, which can then be filled with images.

Using focus and toning tools

The focus and toning tools allow you to enhance your image by altering the pixels in various ways. You can lighten, darken, blur, smudge (see Figure 2-13), sharpen, saturate, or desaturate color in selective portions of your image. These tools work best for touching up smaller areas rather than the entire image.