The Character palette is a tabbed palette, usually paired with the Paragraph palette, which lets you format the appearance of individual type characters. Five of the options in the Character palette are exactly the same as those found in the Options bar. The duplicated features include
- Font family
- Font style
- Font size
- Anti-aliasing
- Text color
Leading
Leading is the amount of space between the baselines of consecutive lines of type, usually measured in points. (The baseline is the imaginary line on which a line of type rests.) You can choose a specific amount of leading or allow Photoshop to determine the amount automatically by choosing Auto from the Leading menu. Wider line spacing can make text easier to read (as long as you don’t go overboard!) or be used for artistic effect. Tighter line spacing makes for more compact text but can decrease readability if your tightening goes too far.
When you select Auto Leading, Photoshop multiplies the type size by a value of 120 percent to calculate the leading size. So Photoshop spaces the baselines of 10-point type 12 points apart. You can change this automatic value by clicking the Paragraph palette and choosing Justify from the palette’s menu. A dialog box appears with several values. Type the amount you want in the Auto Leading box. If all this seems confusing, I recommend experimenting with leading to get a true idea of how various values affect the space between lines of text.
Tracking
Tracking is the amount of space between letters in a string or line. You can specify tight tracking to squeeze all the letters together more closely, or loose tracking to let them spread out a bit. Don’t confuse tracking with kerning, which deals with the space between two individual letters. Tracking sets a value to evenly space all the letters you select, and kerning helps you close or widen the gap between two individual letters. One use for tracking is to help lines of text fit a specified horizontal space, and you can make this technique work if you use it judiciously. Beginners typically overdo tracking, squeezing letters together so tightly they touch, or spreading them apart so that wide gaps appear. To track a set of characters or a line, select the text you want to squeeze or expand, and either choose a value from 0 to –100, or 0 to 200, from the Track menu, or type in a specific value in the Track text box. Each unit is equal to 1⁄1,000 of an em (the width of an em dash in a particular typeface), so a setting of –100 reduces the space between characters by 1⁄10 the width of an em dash (quite a lot!).
Kerning
Kerning is a technique for adding or removing space between pairs of letters to make them fit together more closely and aesthetically. For example, the letters A and V are a natural fit and often look better when kerned slightly. If you choose Metrics from the Kern menu, Photoshop automatically tries to kern the characters to provide an attractive look. Note that the kerning tables are built into the individual font. Be warned that cheap fonts sometimes have poorly created kerning tables or no tables at all — another good reason to stick with quality fonts. To manually kern letters, click at a point between the two characters and either choose a percentage from 0 to –100, or 0 to 200, from the Kern menu, or type in a specific value in the Kern text box. As with the Track menu, the values represent 1⁄1,000 of an em.
Vertical and Horizontal scale
The Vertical and Horizontal Scale options represent the relationship between the height and width of the text. By default, this relationship is 100 percent. To make the width of the type proportionately 50 percent more than the height, you enter 150 percent into the Horizontal Scale box. Be careful about using the scale options. Type designers create fonts with very specific proportions. When you deviate from those proportions, you can destroy what was once a beautifully designed typeface.
Baseline shift and text attributes
The Baseline option adjusts the height above or below a typeface’s normal baseline that the text appears. You usually employ this option to create superscripts and subscripts. A bar with several buttons in the Character palette lets you turn on or off several type attributes with a single click. The text attributes are as follows, from left to right:
- Faux Bold/Faux Italic: Some fonts don’t have true bold or italic options; Photoshop can fake either or both of these if you click the appropriate button. Faux fonts can look good, except at smaller sizes. Applying faux styles can distort the proportions of a font. It is really best to use fonts as they were originally designed and if there is no bold or italic option, c’est la vie.
- All Caps: This button changes the case of the characters in selected text to all capitals, or back to their normal case when you turn it off.
- Small Caps: Small caps are uppercase letters about the size of lowercase letters in a font. They are most frequently used for acronyms and abbreviations, such as NASA or AM/PM because they are less obtrusive than full-size caps in text passages. Click this button, and Photoshop either uses the small caps characters built into many fonts or creates faux small caps for you.
- Superscript: Click this button to raise a character automatically to create a superscript, as in E=MC2. You’ll probably also want to reduce the size of the character.
- Subscript: Click this button to lower the character below the baseline, creating a subscript. Usually, subscripts are reduced in size, as in H2O.
- Underline: Click this button to underline the selected characters, like this.
- Strikethrough: Click the button to provide a strikethrough effect to the selected characters. In legal applications, strikethrough is widely used to show sections that have been removed, but in their original context.
- Character Set: (Refer to Figure 4-6.) Use this drop-down list to select the language you want to use for Photoshop’s spell checker and for hyphenation. The option includes variations, such as USA English or British English, and French or Canadian French.
You can also find the preceding attributes on the Character palette pop-up menu. And the menu lists a few other attributes that are not displayed directly in the palette:
- Standard Vertical Roman Alignment: Displays the text in the standard alignment we are used to seeing — across the page.
- Change Text Orientation: Rotates your text horizontally or vertically. You can also click the button in the left side of the Options bar to do the same task.
- Fractional Widths: This setting is the default display. When type gets small, the spacing between characters may vary by fractions of a pixel. Photoshop has to favor one pixel or the other and sometimes the appearance is strange. Overall, however, it provides the best spacing for the legibility and appearance of the type. But, for small type to be displayed on the Web, the readability may be impaired due to some characters running together and words having gaps.
- System Layout: Displays the text using the operating system’s default text handling, similar to what you see in WordPad or SimpleText. This option doesn’t allow fractions of pixels and removes any anti-aliasing. This is a good option for text to be displayed on the Web.
- No Break: Prevents words from breaking at the end of lines. You may want to select this option to prevent words such as proper names, dates, initials and so forth from breaking. Select your text and then choose the option.
- Old Style to Fractions: When you work with OpenType fonts, you may find that they include tables of various font attributes. These tables allow you to apply various styles, such as true, diagonal fractions, alternate Old Style numerals, fancy cursive type uppercase letters (Swash and Titling), ligatures (designed to fix the kerning of certain awkward letter combinations such as fi and tt), and ornamental fonts (think dingbats or wingdings) such as leaves and flowers.
- Reset Character: Choose this option to reset your character attributes (font family, size, style and so on) back to Photoshop’s default.
- Font family
- Font style
- Font size
- Anti-aliasing
- Text color
Leading
Leading is the amount of space between the baselines of consecutive lines of type, usually measured in points. (The baseline is the imaginary line on which a line of type rests.) You can choose a specific amount of leading or allow Photoshop to determine the amount automatically by choosing Auto from the Leading menu. Wider line spacing can make text easier to read (as long as you don’t go overboard!) or be used for artistic effect. Tighter line spacing makes for more compact text but can decrease readability if your tightening goes too far.
When you select Auto Leading, Photoshop multiplies the type size by a value of 120 percent to calculate the leading size. So Photoshop spaces the baselines of 10-point type 12 points apart. You can change this automatic value by clicking the Paragraph palette and choosing Justify from the palette’s menu. A dialog box appears with several values. Type the amount you want in the Auto Leading box. If all this seems confusing, I recommend experimenting with leading to get a true idea of how various values affect the space between lines of text.
Tracking
Tracking is the amount of space between letters in a string or line. You can specify tight tracking to squeeze all the letters together more closely, or loose tracking to let them spread out a bit. Don’t confuse tracking with kerning, which deals with the space between two individual letters. Tracking sets a value to evenly space all the letters you select, and kerning helps you close or widen the gap between two individual letters. One use for tracking is to help lines of text fit a specified horizontal space, and you can make this technique work if you use it judiciously. Beginners typically overdo tracking, squeezing letters together so tightly they touch, or spreading them apart so that wide gaps appear. To track a set of characters or a line, select the text you want to squeeze or expand, and either choose a value from 0 to –100, or 0 to 200, from the Track menu, or type in a specific value in the Track text box. Each unit is equal to 1⁄1,000 of an em (the width of an em dash in a particular typeface), so a setting of –100 reduces the space between characters by 1⁄10 the width of an em dash (quite a lot!).
Kerning
Kerning is a technique for adding or removing space between pairs of letters to make them fit together more closely and aesthetically. For example, the letters A and V are a natural fit and often look better when kerned slightly. If you choose Metrics from the Kern menu, Photoshop automatically tries to kern the characters to provide an attractive look. Note that the kerning tables are built into the individual font. Be warned that cheap fonts sometimes have poorly created kerning tables or no tables at all — another good reason to stick with quality fonts. To manually kern letters, click at a point between the two characters and either choose a percentage from 0 to –100, or 0 to 200, from the Kern menu, or type in a specific value in the Kern text box. As with the Track menu, the values represent 1⁄1,000 of an em.
Vertical and Horizontal scale
The Vertical and Horizontal Scale options represent the relationship between the height and width of the text. By default, this relationship is 100 percent. To make the width of the type proportionately 50 percent more than the height, you enter 150 percent into the Horizontal Scale box. Be careful about using the scale options. Type designers create fonts with very specific proportions. When you deviate from those proportions, you can destroy what was once a beautifully designed typeface.
Baseline shift and text attributes
The Baseline option adjusts the height above or below a typeface’s normal baseline that the text appears. You usually employ this option to create superscripts and subscripts. A bar with several buttons in the Character palette lets you turn on or off several type attributes with a single click. The text attributes are as follows, from left to right:
- Faux Bold/Faux Italic: Some fonts don’t have true bold or italic options; Photoshop can fake either or both of these if you click the appropriate button. Faux fonts can look good, except at smaller sizes. Applying faux styles can distort the proportions of a font. It is really best to use fonts as they were originally designed and if there is no bold or italic option, c’est la vie.
- All Caps: This button changes the case of the characters in selected text to all capitals, or back to their normal case when you turn it off.
- Small Caps: Small caps are uppercase letters about the size of lowercase letters in a font. They are most frequently used for acronyms and abbreviations, such as NASA or AM/PM because they are less obtrusive than full-size caps in text passages. Click this button, and Photoshop either uses the small caps characters built into many fonts or creates faux small caps for you.
- Superscript: Click this button to raise a character automatically to create a superscript, as in E=MC2. You’ll probably also want to reduce the size of the character.
- Subscript: Click this button to lower the character below the baseline, creating a subscript. Usually, subscripts are reduced in size, as in H2O.
- Underline: Click this button to underline the selected characters, like this.
- Strikethrough: Click the button to provide a strikethrough effect to the selected characters. In legal applications, strikethrough is widely used to show sections that have been removed, but in their original context.
- Character Set: (Refer to Figure 4-6.) Use this drop-down list to select the language you want to use for Photoshop’s spell checker and for hyphenation. The option includes variations, such as USA English or British English, and French or Canadian French.
You can also find the preceding attributes on the Character palette pop-up menu. And the menu lists a few other attributes that are not displayed directly in the palette:
- Standard Vertical Roman Alignment: Displays the text in the standard alignment we are used to seeing — across the page.
- Change Text Orientation: Rotates your text horizontally or vertically. You can also click the button in the left side of the Options bar to do the same task.
- Fractional Widths: This setting is the default display. When type gets small, the spacing between characters may vary by fractions of a pixel. Photoshop has to favor one pixel or the other and sometimes the appearance is strange. Overall, however, it provides the best spacing for the legibility and appearance of the type. But, for small type to be displayed on the Web, the readability may be impaired due to some characters running together and words having gaps.
- System Layout: Displays the text using the operating system’s default text handling, similar to what you see in WordPad or SimpleText. This option doesn’t allow fractions of pixels and removes any anti-aliasing. This is a good option for text to be displayed on the Web.
- No Break: Prevents words from breaking at the end of lines. You may want to select this option to prevent words such as proper names, dates, initials and so forth from breaking. Select your text and then choose the option.
- Old Style to Fractions: When you work with OpenType fonts, you may find that they include tables of various font attributes. These tables allow you to apply various styles, such as true, diagonal fractions, alternate Old Style numerals, fancy cursive type uppercase letters (Swash and Titling), ligatures (designed to fix the kerning of certain awkward letter combinations such as fi and tt), and ornamental fonts (think dingbats or wingdings) such as leaves and flowers.
- Reset Character: Choose this option to reset your character attributes (font family, size, style and so on) back to Photoshop’s default.
Working with Type Character Palette in Photoshop
![Working with Type Character Palette in Photoshop]()
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