Tip of the Day | Page 36

Making The Spell Checker Obey Your Commands

Photoshop’s spell checker isn’t just window dressing; it has a very robust spell-checking function, akin to Adobe InDesign’s own spell checker, but if you understand how it works, you can save yourself some time and frustration. Basically, if you highlight some text on a layer, it checks just the highlighted text, so if you highlight one word, it just checks that one word (even if there are dozens of words in your paragraph). If you choose to spell check but don’t have anything highlighted, it checks your entire document, regardless of how many Type layers you have. It’s also helpful to know that it only checks real Type layers (layers that have a capital “T” as their thumbnail image in the Layers palette), and it cannot spell-check any layers with text that have been rasterized (converted from a Type layer into a regular image layer).

May 9th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Made To Fit: Part Two

This tip relates to a previous tip, where you created what’s called a “text box” so that your type wraps within a text block, rather than running in one straight line. The tip is this: If you’ve created some standard type by just clicking and typing rather than creating a paragraph text block, you’re not out of luck. While the Type layer is active, just go under the Layer menu, under Type, and choose Convert to Paragraph Text. Now your type will wrap within the text box boundaries, and you can edit the boundaries by adjusting the corner and center points.

May 8th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

The Long And The Short Of Type

Although the Character palette has numeric controls for making your type fatter (horizontal scaling) or taller (vertical scaling), it’s usually easier to do these two functions visually (rather than numerically). Here’s how: First set your type, then with the Type cursor still blinking somewhere in the text, press-and-hold the Command key (PC: Control key) to bring up the Free Transform bounding box. To make your type fatter, click on the center handle on either side, release the Command/Control key and drag outward. To make your type taller, grab the center handle on the top or bottom, release the Command/Control key, and drag upward or downward.

May 7th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Bring Those Type Layers Together

How do you merge two Type layers together? Unfortunately, while they’re still editable Type layers, you can’t—you have to rasterize the layers first. Technically, you rasterize just one (the bottom of the two Type layers), and then make the top Type layer active and press Command-E (PC: Control-E) to merge these two layers together. However, when you do that, the top Type layer will automatically rasterize as the two layers are combined into one, so there’s really no way around it—with the exception of this little tip: Highlight the editable type on the top layer and choose Cut from the Edit menu. Switch to the lower Type layer, click your Type cursor once at the end of the type, press Return (PC: Enter) to start a new line, then choose Paste from the Edit menu to paste the contents of the top Type layer into the bottom Type layer. Then drag the old top Type layer into the Trash icon at the bottom of the Layers palette. Although it takes a little effort, now you have both layers combined into one layer (your goal), but the type remains totally editable (the bonus).

May 6th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Tell Photoshop When You’re Done With Type

As you probably know, you can jump to most any tool in the Toolbox by pressing a single-key keyboard shortcut. (If you didn’t know that, sell your copy of Photoshop. Kidding. Just turn to Chapter 2 for some essential tips.) Here’s the problem: While creating type with the Type tool (T), if you press one of those one-key shortcuts (let’s say the letter P for the Pen tool), instead of jumping to the Pen tool, Photoshop types the letter “p”. It’ll drive you nuts. Okay, you won’t go nuts, but at the very least you’ll have a lot of typos. The reason is this: You have to tell Photoshop that you’re done editing your type. You do this in one of three ways: (1) Click on the checkmark icon at the far right of the Options Bar, (2) press the Enter key, or (3) switch to another tool manually by clicking on it in the Toolbox. Any of these three tells Photoshop that you’re done and lets you use the single-key shortcuts to switch tools.

May 5th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Honey, I Need Some Space: Visually Adjust Kerning

You can visually control the spacing between your type (which is much better than numerically trying to figure it out) by using the same keyboard shortcuts for adjusting type that Adobe Illustrator uses. Here’s how: To set the tracking tighter (tightening the space between each letter or word in a group), highlight the type with the Type tool (T), then press Option-Left Arrow (PC: Alt-Left Arrow) to tighten. Press Option-Right Arrow (PC: Alt-Right Arrow) to add more space between a selected group of letters or words. To adjust the space between two individual letters (called kerning), click your cursor between the two letters and use the same keyboard shortcuts mentioned above.

May 2nd, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Rasterize Times 2, 4, 6…

If you have multiple Type layers and you want to convert them all to image layers, there’s a way to do it without individually rasterizing each. Simply go under the Layer menu, under Rasterize, and choose All Layers. This will rasterize all the Type layers at once.

May 1st, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Editing Text Without Highlighting It

Here’s a cool little tip for changing your font size without having the Type tool active. Just click on your Type layer (in the Layers palette), then go under the Window menu and choose Character. When the Character palette appears, you can make changes to your type size, color, font, tracking, etc. It freaks you out, doesn’t it?

April 30th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Move Your Type, Without Switching Tools

Here’s a tip that can save you a lot of tool switching when formatting your type. Once you create your type with the Type tool (T), and while your cursor is still blinking somewhere in the text, if you need to move the type, you don’t have to switch to the Move tool—just move your Type cursor away from your type (either above, below, or an inch or so to the right or left), and your cursor will temporarily change to the Move tool. You can now simply click-and-drag your type. If you want to edit your type some more, just move your cursor back to the type and click where you need to make edits.

April 29th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

Seeing Your Type Change Color

In Photoshop, you can change the color of your type without even selecting it first. “Why is that important?” you may ask. If you highlight your type to change its color using the Foreground color swatch in the Toolbox, the highlighting hides the color of your type so you can’t see any of your color changes while you’re in the Color Picker. So instead, after you commit your type by pressing the Enter key, click on the Color swatch in the Options Bar (without highlighting your type first) when you have the Type tool (T) active. As you change colors in the resulting Color Picker, you’ll see your type update on the fly.

April 28th, 2008 | Web Editor | Tip of the Day | Comments (0)

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Photoshop Tutorials

2012 Text Effect

Recreate the text effect from the title to the new blockbuster movie.
More Fun with 3D

Continue exploring the possibilities with Photoshop’s new 3D tools.
Reverse Restoration

Corey shows you how to make a new photo look damaged by blending in some unusual textures.
3D Background Effects

Use Photoshop’s new 3D tools to create some dazzling background effects.

Premium Video Tutorials From NAPP

Photo Retouch
Scott Kelby shows you how to take an overexposed photo into a great photo using Photoshop. Want Great Photoshop & Photography Skills?

Extended Definition Processing
Scott Kelby shares a technique he's been working on, which gives your final image an HDR look using just one photo.
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Smart Object Masking Trick
Dave Cross shares a trick he discovered that will help you remove white from around your subject when using smart objects.
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Light Painting
Dave Cross takes a popular trend - light painting - and shows you how you can paint text recreating this cool trend.
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Viewing and Basking in your Image

When I’m done working with an image, I like to sit and admire it (hey, I spent six hours working on it, I should). To do that, I hit the Tab key, then hit the F key three times. This hides all of the panels and toolbars and lets you see the image by itself surrounded by black. To get back to regular mode, press the F key and the Tab key one more time.