Understanding Type and Text in Photoshop
Photoshop’s type handling capabilities — what better way to add a title, copyright information, or even a watermark to a photo than right in Photoshop? (While Photoshop is great for adding a line of type or perhaps a few paragraphs of text, perhaps to a flyer or brochure or poster, remember that it’s not the program of choice for such complex projects as books or magazine articles. Such work requires a page layout program like Adobe InDesign.)
Until version 5's type layers, there really wasn't "type" in Photoshop. Rather, we created masks (selections) in the shape of characters and filled with color. You couldn't edit the text later, and it printed as pixels. Photoshop 6 added vector type, which improved output to PostScript devices, such as laser printers and imagesetters. Photoshop 7 adds a few more features. (Despite these important improvements in Photoshop’s text handling capabilities, if you need to add lots of text or very small type to a project, consider using Adobe InDesign Illustrator.)
Basic Type-Related Concepts
There are numerous advantages to vector type. For example, when printed with a PostScript output device, the edges remain crisp and clean, without the so-calledjaggies—the visible stair-step edges of pixels along a curve. Vector artwork can be scaled in an illustration program or by a PostScript printer and still retain those high-quality edges. Because it consists of mathematically defined paths, it can also be manipulated in ways impossible with raster art.
Thus Peter Bauer at the Peachpit Press website introduces his series of article on Photoshop Type. To read the whole series click HERE.
For alternative information on using TEXT in Photoshop click on the numbers below.
