![]() ![]() Rather than relying on the font's built-in kerning information, Optical will try to adjust the spacing based on the shapes of the two characters. If you click on the triangle to the right of the Kerning input box to bring up the list of preset values, you'll see that another option we can choose, directly below Metrics, is Optical. This is often the option that will give you the best results, although it will depend on the quality of the font you're using. Kerning only becomes available when we place our insertion marker between two characters.Īs I mentioned, by default, the Kerning option is set to Metrics, which means that Photoshop is using the letter spacing information that was included with the font by the font's designer. Here, I selected the word "space" in the sentence by double-clicking on it with the Type Tool, then I increased the tracking value to add more space between the letters in the word without affecting any other part of the sentence: Or, you can first select part of the text, then adjust the tracking specifically for the selected range of letters. To adjust the tracking for all of the text on a Type layer at once, simply select the Type layer itself in the Layers panel, then adjust the Tracking value in the Character panel. Using a negative tracking value will move the letters or characters closer together, while a positive value will spread them further apart. To adjust the tracking value, you can click on the triangle to the right of the input box and choose from a list of preset values, you can enter a value manually, or you can click and hold your mouse button down on the option's icon and drag left or right using the scrubby slider that I described a moment ago. Tracking sets the space between multiple characters or letters. It's much faster and easier than typing values in manually, especially when you don't know the exact value you need: As you drag, you'll see the value in the input box changing. With the scubby slider icon visible, click and hold your mouse button down, then drag left or right. Not all options in Photoshop can use a scrubby slider, but if it's available, your cursor will change into the scrubby slider icon, which looks like a hand with the index finger pointed up and small left and right arrows on either side of it. To access an option's scrubby slider, move your mouse cursor over the option's icon directly to the left of its input box. Using Scrubby Slidersīefore we continue with our look at the other type options in the Character panel, one thing I should point out is that if you're using Photoshop CS or higher, an easy way to adjust many of the options in the Character panel (as well as in the Paragraph panel and the Options Bar) is by using scrubby sliders which allow us to change an option's value simply by dragging the mouse! If there seems to be too much or too little space between your lines of text, adjust the leading value accordingly. The general rule with leading is simply to choose a value that makes your text look natural and easily readable, and it will depend a lot on the font you've chosen. The lines of type now appear more condensed. A checkmark to the left of the panel's name means its already open somewhere on your screen: ![]() One way to access the Character panel in Photoshop is by going up to the Window menu in the Menu Bar along the top of the screen, which opens a list of all the panels that are available to us, and choosing Character from the list. In this tutorial, we'll cover the Character panel options, then in the next tutorial, we'll look at the additional options in the Paragraph panel!ĭownload this tutorial as a print-ready PDF! Accessing The Character Panel Instead, they're found in the Character and Paragraph panels. Photoshop includes more advanced text options as well, but we won't find them in the Options Bar. In both of those tutorials, we saw that whenever we have the Type Tool selected, the Options Bar along the top of the screen gives us quick access to a handful of commonly-used text options, like font selection, text color, and so on. In the first two tutorials in our series on working with type in Photoshop, we learned how to add point type to a document, best for small amounts of text on a single line, and how to add area type, which is a better choice for larger blocks of text on multiple lines. ![]()
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