Chapter06

Ch 6: Writing

Photoshop CS6 EssentialsBy Scott Onstott

Ch 6: Writing

Anatomy of Type• The height of the lowercase letter x is called x-height and refers to the height of

lower case letters in general. • Lower case letters b, d, f, k, l, t have ascenders that are higher than the x-

height. • Lower case letters g, j, p, q, y have descenders that are lower than the baseline

the letter x rests on. • The cap height is the x-height plus the ascender while the font height equals the

ascender plus the x-height plus the descender.

Ch 6: Writing

Font Types• Serif fonts have small horizontal lines

or wedges at the end of some letter strokes that originate from a time when letters were painted with a brush.

• Sans serif fonts sometimes-simpler appearance can be preferable for readability on the web and/or in larger font sizes.

• A small subset of the fonts supplied by Photoshop is monospaced where each letter has exactly the same width like a typewriter.

Ch 6: Writing

Font Options• Some fonts have styles that are variations on a theme. • Style examples include condensed, expanded, italic, and bold families• You can toggle the orientation of your text from horizontal to vertical or

vice versa by clicking the Text Orientation toggle• There are several anti-aliasing options that each produce very subtle

differences to blend the edges of the vector font into the grid of pixels• You can type any font size into the text box rather than rely on the

choices that appear in the drop down menu

Ch 6: Writing

Mask Text• The Horizontal and Vertical Mask Text

tools create selections only• While you are in the process of typing

mask text it retains its vector editability• After you commit any changes to the mask

text the vector representation is rasterized and the output becomes a selection

• You can do many creative things with selections as you will be learning in subsequent chapters

• One such example shown in this chapter is creating a mask for a gradient fill layer

Ch 6: Writing

Altering Letter Shape• After you create a text layer you

can convert it to a shape by choosing this option in the context menu that appears when you right click the layer name

• Once converted the text is no longer text (you can’t edit which letters appear) but has become a vector drawing

• Use the Direct Selection tool to tweak any of the anchor points to create the letter shapes you want

Ch 6: Writing

Fine-Tuning Text• The Character panel has many more option

than appear on the options panel for fine-tuning text

• Leading adjusts the spacing between lines• Kerning adjusts the spacing between letter

pairs• Tracking adjusts the spacing of the entire

selection• You can also scale text vertically and/or

horizontally• A variety of special mode button appear on

the lower portion of the Character panel

Ch 6: Writing

Binding Text to a Path• Begin by drawing an open or

closed shape in Paths mode• Select the Horizontal or Vertical

Type tool and position the cursor directly over the work path; when it changes to a cursor with a curved path icon click to bind the text to the path

• After you type the text bound to the path press A to select either path selection tool

• Drag to position the text relative to the path

Ch 6: Writing

Writing Paragraph Text• You can create paragraph text in two ways.

From scratch you simply drag the insertion point cursor and drag out a window approximating the size of the imaginary box you wish to fill with paragraph text

• Right-click point text and choose Convert to Paragraph text from the context menu to convert existing text

• Drag the handles on the paragraph frame and the text will flow and wrap within

Ch 6: Writing

Adjusting Paragraph Text• “Lorem Ipsum” is the name of standard

filler text used for approx 500 years.• Filler text isn’t meant to be read but used

as a placeholder for layout• The site www.lipsum.com is a convenient

source that generates filler text of arbitrary length

• The optimum line length is 10 words for best reading efficiency

• Full justification is best used with hyphenation to optimize the space between words