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A Comprehensive Introduction to the Type Tool

Apr 21st in Tools & Tips by Alvaro Guzman

Who doesn't know the Type Tool? This is maybe one of the most powerful and useful tools of Photoshop. We've all used it at least once, but do you know all its potential? That's why I decided to write a comprehensive guide about Photoshop's Type tool, including do's and don'ts of the most important features of this tool.

PG

Author: Alvaro Guzman

I'm Alvaro Guzman from Bolivia, Web developer and Graphic designer. For me digital design is a modern form of art, which allows me to explore innovative techniques, and helps to deliver a clear message to the public.My work covers advertising, corporate image, print design, and web design areas. I am currently the Design Team Leader of SouthMakers. And you can find me on Twitter @alvarocker.

The Basics

Type is the Photoshop tool to create vector outlines and mathematical shapes to define the symbols of a typeface. It's located on the standard Tool Bar as a tiny T. The keyboard shortcut of this is the letter (T), and if you hold click over that tool (or Shift + T several times) you'll see four options: Horizontal Type, Vertical Type, Horizontal Type Mask and Vertical Type Mask.

  • Horizontal Type Tool: This enables the tool to create horizontal standard text (left to right and top to bottom).
  • Vertical Type Tool: Enables the tool to create vertical text (top to bottom and right to left), useful to write in oriental languages like Japanese or Chinese, or if you want to experiment with typographic design.
  • Horizontal Type Mask Tool, Vertical Type Mask Tool: Creates a Quick mask using the Type shape as a Selection. We'll see more application of these modes shortly.

Once you've select your desired Type Tool, you'll notice the mouse cursor changes into the standard Type cursor, something like an I, this means the document is ready to put text on it.

Creating a Type Layer

There's two ways to create a text layer, which are Point and Paragraph Type:

  • Point Type: This option will create a Type layer into a single line, the break lines must be placed by you hitting Return or Enter in the keyboard.

    To create a Point Type layer select your desired Type Tool (Horizontal or Vertical text), and click one time with the cursor anywhere you want to put the text in. Then just start writing, when you have finished to add the text you can either click the tiny Commit button on the Option bar, hit the Enter key on the numeric pad of your keyboard or just hit Command + Enter.

  • Paragraph Type: This option will create a Text layer with text wrapping into a bounding box. Is pretty useful for both print and web design. To add a Paragraph layer you must create the bounding box first. You can Click and Drag the cursor diagonally until you've got your desired size.

Doesn't matter if there's a background image, or any other object, the Type tool will create a new layer for the new text. Besides, you can easily switch between Point to Paragraph type or vice versa by going to Layer > Type > Convert to Paragraph Text / Convert to Point Text.

Resize and Transform

Obviously, you can resize and transform each text layer as any other, do it by using the Move Tool (V), selecting the layer and Showing Transform controls. Anyway this kind of transforming will stretch, enlarge, or badly distort the type shape.

If you really want a good result on a Paragraph Type layer, you must do the following: Select the Type tool, and click over the Paragraph text, then go to one of the transform handles and click and drag to resize the box, the text will automatically reflow inside the new box. Shift-drag to preserve the proportion or keep a constant rotation increment, Command-drag to scale the type, Command-drag on a center handle to skew the type box, and Option-drag to resize the box from its center.

Character Options

Basic Formatting

It's time to move forward. After typing some text, you obviously want to change the font face, color and more, this is really simple. First show the Character window by going to Window > Character. The Character window has several Options to format characters, following there're some examples about formatting Font Family, Style, Size and Color (you must double-click on color sample to see the color picker). After committing the type, you can either click on the text miniature in the Layers panel and change the entire text layer format or with the Type tool selected, click on the text layer you want to edit, make a selection and change the character format of the selected text.

Kerning and Tracking

You can easily customize both Kerning and Tracking in Photoshop. Select a text layer or make a text selection and look in Character window for the Kern and Track values.

You're able to customize the kern (space between specific pairs of characters) by selecting between Metrics Kerning or Optical Kerning. Metrics will automate adjust kern using the included pairs of the font you're using. Optical will adjust the kern based on the font shape. Besides you can customize the kern values by typing a numeric value (positive or negative) in the Kerning field or select one of the presets.

Tracking is very similar, just set a numeric value (positive or negative) to increase / reduce space between the letters. Besides you can combine both Kern and Track to obtain a nice result.

Vertical and Horizontal Scaling

Scale the text layer both horizontally and vertically by changing the Scale values in the Character window. Just as advice, I almost never use those scaling values because when you distort a typeface you're distorting the shape itself, and sometimes creating an undesirable result, look at the image below, the nice Century Gothic's 'O' character is a perfect circle without scaling it, and it turns into an oval when you change the scaling values. Besides notice the shapes aren't regular, i.e. the line width is wider at top and bottom of the 'O' character when you change the vertical scaling.

Baseline Shift

This is very useful when you want to make your text layer fit somewhere, such as around an image. Change this value to move the baseline of a text selection above or below the baseline of the rest of the text layer.

Faux Bold and Faux Italic

Photoshop has the option to auto create a Faux Bold and Italic variation for any typeface, pretty useful sometimes, but you must take special care in order to distort the type shape as little as possible. Below there are examples of Faux Bold on the Arial typeface, which isn't distorting the type shape that much, but applying Faux Italic on Myriad Pro actually distorts the original italic style of the typeface (look at the 'a' character for example).

Font Variants and Text Decoration

You can easily customize the font variant, Capitalizing all the characters, or convert it to Small Caps. To do so, just select a text layer, or make a text selection, and click on the respective button in the Character Window. Besides, you can edit the text decoration as Underline or Strikethrough.

Anti-aliasing, Where and When

Anti-aliasing produces smooth-edged text making the text borders blend into the background layer/image. There're four anti-aliasing options: Sharp, Crisp, Strong and Smooth, and obviously the option None. Often, you must apply some anti-aliasing to every text layer in your design for easily reading in particular into Serif typefaces. There're some exceptions when you should set None as anti-aliasing value, i.e. when you're adding sample text for web design content, when using a pixel typeface, etc.

Leading

Either in both Point or Paragraph text layer you can adjust the leading (vertical space) between lines. Leave it as an automatic value by selecting (auto) for the Leading value, or type a custom value to adjust the space by yourself.

Paragraph Options

Basic Alignment

Since a Paragraph Text Layer can contain multiple lines, formatting them is very important for the quality of any design, that's what the Paragraph window is about. Open it by going to Window > Paragraph. Create a paragraph text layer, type something, commit the text and click on the layer miniature to activate the options for the entire text. Alternatively, you can make a text selection by using the Type tool, and apply paragraph formatting only into the selected lines of your text layer.

Of course, the basic feature on Paragraph text is Align. You can easily customize the alignment (Left, Center, Right or Justify) by clicking on the icons in the Paragraph window, besides there are three more options for Justify Alignment, changing the alignment of the last line of the text layer or the selected text (Left, Center, Right).

To customize the Justify alignment, go to the Paragraph palette menu and click on Justification, there you'll be able to configure Word and Letter Spacing, Glyph Scaling and Auto Leading percentages.

Hyphenation

The settings you choose for hyphenation affects the horizontal spacing of the paragraph, making it wider or stretching it, depending on the words of each line. To apply hyphenation into a Paragraph Text Layer, just choose the language in the Character Window, and activate Hyphenation in the Paragraph window. To disable Hyphenation, just uncheck the option box in the Paragraph window.

Most of time the automatic Hyphenation will work just fine for you, but sometimes you'll need to customize it. To enable advanced Hyphenation options click on the Paragraph panel menu and select Hyphenation. You'll see the following options:

  • Words Longer Than # Letters: set the minimum number of characters for your hyphenated words; i.e. if you set a value of 5, the word 'photo' will be not hyphenate, but if you set the value '3' you'll get 'pho-to.' The default value is '2.'
  • After First # Letters and Before Last # Letters: specifies the minimum number of characters at the beginning or end of a word that can be broken by a hyphen, i.e. if you set any of those values as '1' you could have an undesirable hyphenation, such as "h-ello" or "actio-n." By default both values are set as '2.'
  • Hyphen Limit: set the maximum number of consecutive lines on which hyphenation may occur.
  • Hyphenation Zone: set a distance from the right edge of a paragraph.
  • Hyphenate Capitalized Words: prevents hyphenation of capitalized words.

Indent and Space Between Paragraphs

Indenting is quite easy. Just select a text layer, or make a text selection, and write or slice both left or right Indent values. You can indent a text selection left or right, or indent the first line of a Paragraph as shown in the second image below.

Besides, you can easily add space between paragraphs (before or after) in the Paragraph window, just type a custom value in the Space Before or the Space After paragraph.

Warp Text

One of the most powerful features of the Type Tool is the capability to Warp any text layer according to your particular needs. To Warp a type layer double-click on the Text Layer Miniature and click over the Create Warped Text button in the Options Menu. You'll be prompted to select a Warp Style orientation (Vertical or Horizontal), then you'll have three sliders to increase or decrease the values of Bend, Horizontal and Vertical Distortion. Below is a single example of how to warp Point text by using Arc Warp and different values of Bend and Distortion.

Of course you can Warp a Paragraph Text Layer as well, see the image below. It shows a simple way to get the famous "Star Wars" intro effect just by increasing the Vertical Distortion and with the help of a small Gradient Layer Mask.

Warping text is really funny, try it with different warp options. There're a few restrictions though, you cannot Warp a Text Layer if you applied previously Faux Bold, or Faux Italic styles in the Character panel.

Type on a Path

You can create a type layer that flows along a work path created by using the Pen Tool or Vector Shape Tool. To create a Type on a path, first draw a path by using the Pen Tool, then select the Type Tool and place the cursor anywhere on the path, you'll see the shape of the cursor changes the baseline for an S shaped line. Click on the path and write some text.

Path on a Shape

The process to add a text layer on a vector shape is the same. First, ensure the vector shapes is selected, do this by using the Path Selection Tool to select the shape. Once the path is visible, select the Type Tool and click anywhere over the path and write something. You can edit any Character option, a good example is increasing the Baseline Shift a little bit to create a space between text and shape.

Edit Type on a Path

Sometimes you'll need to change the orientation and position of the type on a path. For this, select the Path Selection Tool, place the cursor over the text until you get a little black arrow on the type cursor, then Drag the cursor below the baseline to flip the type. Use the same method to flip the text and place it inside a shape. Obviously, you can add any layer style to the text layer and this will continue being editable.

Convert Type into Shape

Several times we'll need to be able to change or modify the shape of a character, for several purposes, like logo design, Photoshop makes this easy. Just create a text layer or select one and go to Layer > Type > Convert to Shape. This tool will convert the type into a Vector Layer Mask, which can be edited as any other vector shape. You can also create a Work path by going to Layer > Type > Convert Work Path.

Type Mask Tool

Finally, you can do most of the described features of the type tool, but using Selections instead type shapes. For this click and hold on the Type Tool until more options appears. There select Horizontal (or Vertical) Type Mask. By selecting this tool you'll be able to create a quick selection with the shape, which is pretty useful on either Layer Mask or Quick Mask mode. Below is a small example of a word written using the Type Mask Tool. I used that selection to create a Layer Mask over a picture.

Conclusion

Type tool is one of the most powerful features of Photoshop. With practice you'll become a master after playing with characters and paragraphs. There are no limits of what you can create with this wonderful tool.

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User Comments

( ADD YOURS )
  1. PG

    zombie April 21st

    nice one. there are some things there that i didn’t know about

    ( Reply )
    1. PG

      Tom H April 21st

      Yes. This is a very good beginner’s tutorial – I wish I had this when I was starting up!

      I’ve learned a few things here, thanks!

      ( Reply )
    2. PG

      Shuuun April 22nd

      Same, the Hypernate Button! Now i know what it does :)

      Or now i will use it :D

      Thanks at all!

      ( Reply )
  2. PG

    scottie April 21st

    i always have a hard time getting type to follow along the inside of a circle. for example…let’s say a circle goes around a logo…the company name is easy to put along the top of the circle, but i can never get it to be along the circle under the logo…like on the inside curve of the circle…any suggestions???

    ( Reply )
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      J. Khan April 21st

      this would be my way of doing it, not so professional but kinda improvisational.

      Make a circle path that is exactly the same as the circle in the logo.
      Use the same technique to type on that curve of the circle.
      Simply move the text to the spot that you want it.
      Edit the text to fit and look nice. =D

      *Oh and to this tut, it was really good, I’m not a beginner at photoshop, but there was still things here that I didn’t even know about.

      ( Reply )
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    Matt Clarke April 21st

    Thanks for this one, taught me a few things i didn’t know! Genius.
    Never thought of using baseline shift the way you have, makes sense.
    Cheers, Matt.

    ( Reply )
  4. PG

    Stikz Designs April 21st

    Nice tutorial! I know the basics but its always good as a reminder!

    ( Reply )
  5. PG

    Benjamin Reid April 21st

    Nice round-up. Good to go back over the basics now and again.

    ( Reply )
  6. PG

    Starstuff April 21st

    Woah, thanks, that was just what I was looking for! You have spared me countless hours of trying and research with this article. Impressive!

    ( Reply )
  7. PG

    Barbara April 21st

    Really wel done and useful article!

    ( Reply )
  8. PG

    Anthony April 21st

    I came into this like “yeah I know the type tool very well” and then I learned a couple of things. Thank you :)

    ( Reply )
  9. PG

    Tilo April 21st

    Nice article

    ( Reply )
  10. PG

    Snorri3D April 21st

    Amazing :D so simple tool but so Powerful

    ( Reply )
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      mattyo June 16th

      i bet if the person who created that tool came across this comment he’d say, “simple eh? lets see you code that tool!”

      ( Reply )
  11. PG

    Daniel Keiniti April 21st

    I prefer working with types on InDesign or Illustrator, but this is a great tutorial explanation anyway. Congrats!

    ( Reply )
  12. PG

    dsreaper April 21st

    A really good thorough explanation of the type tool and I’m glad to say that there’s nothing new for me :P

    ( Reply )
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      Sathish April 21st

      +1 :)

      ( Reply )
  13. PG

    insic April 21st

    cool tutorial. very useful.

    ( Reply )
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    Phenotype April 21st

    Learned a couple of new things, thanks! I wish PSDTuts had more tutorials like this that went over the basic tools in-depth because there are a lot of us out there who know the tools well but might not now every single thing it’s capable of. Plus this sort of thing is great for beginners too.

    ( Reply )
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      Alvaro April 21st

      yeap, understand your suggestion, not everyone is a PRO, and even the most experienced users ignores a few things, that’s why I’ll try to write a basic tutorial on several useful tools as often as possible

      ( Reply )
    2. PG

      Sean Hodge April 21st

      Yah, it’s great to have Alvaro writing these. I’ve also contacted a couple more writers as well to get some more Tools & Tips tutorials/articles aimed at beginners up on the site. Photoshop is such a deep program, and to thoroughly understand even some of the basic tools takes some study and practice. Great job Alvaro. Thx.

      ( Reply )
  15. PG

    Free CSS Tutorials April 21st

    Now that is what I call a comprehensive guide to the type tool. Wow!

    ( Reply )
  16. PG

    Germansn April 21st

    very nice tuto…and very useful thx!

    ( Reply )
  17. PG

    buzzy April 21st

    Typetastic!!!!

    ( Reply )
  18. PG

    Peewee1002 April 21st

    Crickeys never knew you could ever do this much with it.

    I just do the long way around with most technequies. Think I will stick with it though as I will only get confused otherwise.

    ( Reply )
  19. PG

    Topher Fangio April 21st

    Thanks for this post! I’ve been “learning” Photoshop for a while now and these tutorials over the simple things really help me learn a ton! Keep it up!

    ( Reply )
  20. PG

    Kiera April 21st

    Not gonna lie, I read the title of this and thought, really? But this was actually one of the more informative and helpful ones I’ve read through! You always can learn something new! :) Thanks for this!

    ( Reply )
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    j_syk April 21st

    I’m the student manager for a marketing office at my University, I’m adding this link to my recommended reading list for my new hires, and even current employees. Great comprehensive overview. I just recently got into using some of the things like baseline shifting individual letters or words, it can make a big difference in advertisement based designs.

    ( Reply )
  22. PG

    SnowInChina April 21st

    good overview
    i think basic tutorials are always appreciated since many users didnt learn photoshop by the book and dont know many of the basic functions
    thanks for your work

    ( Reply )
  23. PG

    Dan April 21st

    Alvaro, good job on this tutorial. I’d just like to add that you shouldn’t have to adjust kerning when working with well engineered fonts (with the exception of all caps text, which needs manual kerning). I also wish you hadn’t shown people how to stretch type! ;)

    ( Reply )
  24. PG

    Rafael Fabrisio April 21st

    thanks¡¡

    ( Reply )
  25. PG

    Nate April 21st

    This is a wonderful tutorial, I learned new things! Psdtuts is driving me away from just a beginner in Photoshop. :)

    ( Reply )
  26. PG

    Michael Sågerås April 21st

    Very nice tutorial:-) Working with type is sp fun and even moore after this excellent work.

    ( Reply )
  27. PG

    dylan john western April 21st

    nice basic view of everything the type tool can do. the only problem is i wish you would have taken some time to point out the things you ought not do, such as stretch and warp type. note i said ought not and not must not. but i suppose this was not a typography lesson.

    ( Reply )
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    Ricardo April 21st

    Its amazing, after almost 6 years of using Photoshop I still didn’t know how to write on a path. Shame on me. Your tutorial works well for both the beginner and the advanced PS user, these practical reminders are never too much.

    Thank you.

    ( Reply )
  29. PG

    David Wood April 21st

    Nice! Very good guide for the beginner.

    ( Reply )
  30. PG

    joel April 21st

    Thanks Alvaro Guzman your stuff is as always amazingly cool and easy!

    ( Reply )
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    VertigoSFX April 21st

    Wow this is an amazing beginner’s tutorial. Really well written and taught me some stuff I didn’t even realize…like how pathetic I am to not even think of the method for typing on a path in Photoshop. (I always do it in Illustrator). I’m dumb. Great tut…keep em coming.

    ( Reply )
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    Philip Wallage April 21st

    Yeah nice post dude. Pretty basic stuff but very important to know.
    Sadly enough, we ‘barely’ have AA support on the web.
    Our day will come! VIVA LA RESISTANCE. Oh sry, well yeah.
    Good stuff.

    ( Reply )
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    ims April 21st

    great tutorial ..
    specially the points of the paragraph & the path :)
    i can’t prevent myself from reading it now .. i have an exam tomorrow !!
    wish me luck :)

    ( Reply )
  34. PG

    Elton Lester April 21st

    awesome, this one is going into my resource folder

    ( Reply )
  35. PG

    Chesham April 21st

    Very nice, covers the tool quite well.

    ( Reply )
  36. PG

    Javier April 21st

    Muy buen tutorial y perfectamente explicado, felicitaciones Álvaro.

    ( Reply )
  37. PG

    mrxempz April 21st

    basic but useful for others…. thnx for the share

    ( Reply )
  38. PG

    Sergio Ordóñez April 21st

    I agree, its very basic but very useful.

    ( Reply )
  39. PG

    I have never stolen a car April 21st

    Great and thorough tutorial, many thanks.

    I’m also thankful that bigot Miss California lost. Thanks, God!

    ( Reply )
  40. PG

    snnaqvi April 21st

    This is very useful tutorial for both beginners and advance users. It taught me some tricks that I didn’t know.

    ( Reply )
  41. PG

    Pontus April 21st

    Woah! Really enjoyed this one!

    ( Reply )
  42. PG

    :// April 21st

    AMAZING post!

    ( Reply )
  43. PG

    nagashima April 22nd

    thx.very useful!

    ( Reply )
  44. PG

    keruchan April 22nd

    I already know all of them but after reading this tutorial I remember the day that I was a newbie on photoshop. I just realize that I totally forgotten that there are still someone out there who doesn’t know this basics.

    thanks a lot, I realize that I should write some excellent photoshop basics on my blog.

    ( Reply )
  45. PG

    iPad April 22nd

    Basic, but useful!

    ( Reply )
  46. PG

    RUGRLN April 22nd

    GR8 stuffff….can’t believe I never knew about the paragraph type…

    ( Reply )
  47. PG

    Berry April 22nd

    I didn’t read everything here but the illustrations themselves has given me ideas. I guess you could call it learning to be creative.

    ( Reply )
  48. PG

    Maik Diepenbroek April 22nd

    Such a simple, well known tool but so many thing you can achieve with it.

    Great in depth tutorial on the type tool, thanks for sharing you’re knowledge

    ( Reply )
  49. PG

    underdog April 22nd

    useful. thankyou Alvaro Guzman!

    ( Reply )
  50. PG

    bumstaerk April 22nd

    Great tutorial – Tought me some things I didn´t know already.

    ( Reply )
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      BDS April 23rd

      ohh good

      ( Reply )
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    Palamina April 22nd

    Thank you for a nice post! :)

    Out of curiosity: in which cases are Point Type an preferable to Paragraph Type? To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever used the former… :P
    (Yes, I’m pretty fresh.)

    ( Reply )
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      Palamina April 22nd

      Ohmy, a little too early in the morning for me… Horribly written, that. Let’s try again:

      In which cases is Point Type preferable to Paragraph Type?

      Thanks.

      ( Reply )
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    Chris April 22nd

    Very usefull :D .. thanks

    ( Reply )
  53. PG

    viper April 22nd

    Wow, thanks psdtuts!
    Never hear about functions like “Convert Type into Shape” or “Type Mask Tool”.
    And you think you know all about Photoshop xD

    ( Reply )
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      vetle May 15th

      takes time to know it all, viper Xp

      ( Reply )
  54. PG

    Jagtesh Chadha April 22nd

    Yummy site and tuts!

    Thank you guys!

    ( Reply )
  55. PG

    desu April 22nd

    I think I’m miss about Tool type. Thanks,its good one for me…

    ( Reply )
  56. PG

    Kalyan April 22nd

    Thanks, goo to go through basics again :)

    ( Reply )
  57. PG

    DataMouse April 22nd

    Superb beginner tutorial.
    Loads of stuff to get your teeth into.

    ( Reply )
  58. PG

    Kalyan April 22nd

    Thanks, good to go through the basics again :)

    ( Reply )
  59. PG

    kevinsturf April 22nd

    amazing overview of everything type tool, great for beginners

    ( Reply )
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    Andre Oliveira April 22nd

    wow..what a guide!!

    impressive!

    ( Reply )
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    Ludovic April 22nd

    Very very very nice!

    ( Reply )
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    Sputink April 22nd

    when i first read the summary on the home page is like whats there to learn with a type tool when i read this tutorial i learned so many things

    thanks

    ( Reply )
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    Rick Harris April 22nd

    Ctrl-Enter to commit the text from the keyboard.

    Nice, thorough tut.

    ( Reply )
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    The Geek April 22nd

    PSD Tuts is going waaaaaayyyyyy down hill in my opinion. The tutorials recently have been absolutely garbage. This is basic basic basic knowledge of photoshop. If you dont know the uses of the type tool then i would consider you a ‘cowboy’.

    Come on PSD Tuts, lets get the good old days back!

    ( Reply )
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      Sean Hodge April 22nd

      @The Geek, I strongly disagree with your statement. And I’ve been running this site since, “the old days.” We publish more high quality material at a higher frequency today, then at any point of Psdtuts+ history. Our material has become more complex and we work with a variety of talented artists. Also, every week we publish creative tutorials that show start to finish how to create an awesome illustration or design.

      Keep in mind though, that we reach thousands of people everyday with the material posted here. And many of them are new to Photoshop. This tutorials is targeted at teaching beginners how to use these tools. However, even intermediate users will find some benefit from a comprehensive coverage of these tools. Most of us get caught up in a workflow, or certain way of doing things, and may not realize some of the tools available. Especially, with each release of Photoshop.

      Your feedback is appreciated though. Thx.

      ( Reply )
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        lawrence77 April 22nd

        Yeah you are correct sean!
        Its useful for new photoshop users!
        somewhat I know all these, so I missed to write a tutorial here! :(

        And again and again I asked this question?
        Where is Collis and when He finished his 5 series of earth, fire and …….

  65. PG

    Sven Giesen April 22nd

    Nothing very new for my part, but very very much respect for this really complete summary.

    Well done.

    ( Reply )
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    CARLOS MV April 22nd

    GREAT TUTORIAL!

    ( Reply )
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    moih60 April 22nd

    very useful tips for all PS users
    thanx

    ( Reply )
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    seo April 22nd

    good thanks

    ( Reply )
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    saurabh shah April 22nd

    wow nice post.. really useful…

    ( Reply )
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    Franky April 22nd

    Nice post. Sometimes its good to review.

    I have a question

    Is there a short cut to convert a paragraph type to point type. Or vise versa???

    Please let me know.

    ( Reply )
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      Alvaro April 22nd

      no, I didn’t see it, but you can costumize the shortcut by going to Edit > Keyboard Shorcuts

      ( Reply )
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    My name is April 22nd

    Would have love to know how to fill certain figures with normal texts..

    ( Reply )
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    Dalton Hurd April 22nd

    Wow, I can’t believe I never knew how to type on a path. I guess you learn something new everyday, right?

    The only thing I thought was missing, was the mention of other anti-aliasing methods. I personally use ‘Crisp’ when using small lipsum text, as the ‘Sharp’ method seems to make small fonts quite dense and blocky/pixely.

    ( Reply )
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    marclapatate April 22nd

    good i dident know all thx to teache me can you plz do all type of button like tha?
    thx again!!

    marclapatate
    p.s. sorry for me english im french

    ( Reply )
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    Jeff April 22nd

    I could’ve saved literally hundreds of hours had I known some of these obvious techniques.

    Thanks for opening my eyes!

    ( Reply )
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    Mike April 23rd

    Very nice tutorial. Thanks for the effort.

    ( Reply )
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    Jamie Allsop April 23rd

    This is a nice tutorial for people with different skill levels in Photoshop. It has reminded me of some of the basic things which you can do as well as the more advanced things. Its always good to remind yourself of the basics.

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    Steve Forbes April 23rd

    If only Adobe’s manuals were like this, we’d all learn so much quicker!

    Nothing new for me, but still good to go over the basics again as said :)

    Keep em coming! :P

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    kick April 23rd

    idk . …too basic

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    zahid April 23rd

    ya its great and i am happy to know more about this tool the way of learning is to friendly ……..

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    Gunnar April 23rd

    Nice. Specially about the Typing on a Path.
    Would be nice with more tutorials about typography in general. And specific towards web interfaces also..

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    lee April 23rd

    gotta say man, iv’e got a uni degree and have been freelance graphic designer for the past 6 years and that is the most comprehensive easy to understand, “now i know what that does” tut so far. cheers man.

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    roberto blake April 23rd

    This was an excellent and comprehensive overview of the type tool. Kudos.

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    Tom April 23rd

    This article is AWESOME ! Thanks !

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    haryo April 23rd

    amazing tut’s.thank’s dude

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    Jayed April 23rd

    I’m typing Vertical text :D I can’t seem to put spacing in it -.-” It’s driving me nuts, anyone know how to space letters in vertical text?

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    Jayed April 23rd

    Well… I figured it out. I somehow needed to re-adjust my settings and thus had to re-screw around with my font sizes *snickers* oh well :P

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    tom April 24th

    very nice article,, thank you

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    Jazz April 24th

    A fantastic, in depth, and useful tutorial.

    Definitely will use these techniques.

    Great work. Keep it up.

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    tito April 24th

    cool

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    Nikola April 24th

    WOW! Excellent article. Thanks Alvaro!

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    Mrs.Beasly April 24th

    One of the problems I always run into is when to use anti-aliasing for web graphics and when to use none. The article says to use None for pixel based fonts. But some of my web graphics, for banners or icons, don’t always use pixel fonts. For most of my web banners it’s not a problem but for the icons I make for forums or communities, when the icon is 100 x 100 pixels, it becomes a problem to have legible text. I don’t usually use pixel fonts, simply because they’re not too pretty. So, do I use anti-aliasing for say a font like Zephyr or a a grunge font?

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    JesusFreak983! April 24th

    WOW!!!!!!! Yeah, I agree with a lot of people here, I didn’t know how to do a lot of this stuff, and thought it was just stuff everyone already knew but its really good.
    This is an awesome tut! It is great for Photoshop beginners like me (even though I have worked with Photoshop for two and a half years!)I didn’t even know about the masking tool or the type warp or the follow path thingy! I’ll start using these right away!

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    hannahbananabelle April 24th

    I saw on another page someone said this tutorial wasn’t good enough for psdtuts; i absolutely loved it! I’m no technological-whatever, i just started Photoshop and i don’t get why you can’t post the basics. Just saying. Thank you so much, this explains a lot of the cool ads people make, and i can do more than i could before! Thanks again, you’re really helping out the beginners! I wish there were more like this… could you make one of these for the pen tool? :-D

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    wallpapers April 25th

    i’ve been using ps for ages and never knew you could skew the paragraphs of text like that. – you guys should write a book.

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    Spades April 25th

    Learned a couple of things here on this basic tool, thanks!

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    Cristhian Bedon April 25th

    Nice breakdown!

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    Raza April 26th

    Amazing Post!!! OUTSTANDING!!!

    ( Reply )
  98. great tutorial.

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    Miguel April 26th

    wow..all in one tutorial using text!

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    MFI April 26th

    very very gus tut .. thx for shairing

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    Manz April 27th

    Amazing!! :)

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    Kyle Gallant April 27th

    Very well put together, it’s nice to get back to basics… many functions aren’t used everyday, and are easily forgotten. Excellent post.

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    huwaw69 April 27th

    Good emphasis on typing tool… its really a powerful thing in photoshop

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    Eric Shafer April 27th

    This is probably the best introduction to a Photoshop tool that I’ve seen.

    Featured here: http://www.presidiacreative.com/web-picks-19/

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      Alvaro April 27th

      thanks man :D

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    shar April 28th

    Very helpful tutorial – well-written and informative. Thank you!

    ( Reply )
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    Addrifunk April 28th

    Thanks, very useful

    ( Reply )
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    Sarah April 28th

    Nice! I’m such a dork. Never realized there was Paragraph Spacing as well as Line Leading. My life just got a lot easier. Thanks!

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    Kilian April 30th

    Love Type on a Path ;)

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    me May 1st

    thanks for this tut !

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    Wes Ivey May 1st

    Verty good tut but one big ouch. Your images are all .jpeg so they’re all covered in noise and gross in parts. Save as .png

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    sh. May 1st

    why don´t you describe the cs4 type tool?

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      Alvaro May 4th

      is exactly the same on CS4

      ( Reply )
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    Vijay Bandari May 2nd

    really nice tutorial.. all about text… i did used some of options from this post for creating my logo (still in progress)….
    thanks :)

    ( Reply )
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    Arun J May 4th

    Great post…godd lessons….
    Thanx a lot man…..

    ( Reply )
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    TORI May 4th

    HI! I was wondering what font you used for the “Indect and Space Between Paragraphs” tutorial.
    Please, if anyone knows that sees this, let me know. Thank you! :]

    ( Reply )
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    KS May 5th

    Great Tutz..thanks for the tutorial.indeed a great help :D

    ( Reply )
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    Kaith May 8th

    Thanks a lot for this tutorial!

    ( Reply )
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    JC May 8th

    Gotta just add my kudos for this tut. Learned a lot of things I didn’t know before.. who knows what secrets are lurking in all the other tools I use daily?

    The examples were also ace – very practical and realistic of what you’d be dealing with.

    ( Reply )
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    Justin May 8th

    the only one i didnt know about was the typing on a path or around the circle/box. i knew you could make the font be contained inside a box though. so thanks. that is a lot better than using wart or transform.

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    web design May 14th

    good refresher, sometimes I forget to experiment with type due to quick turn around and tight deadlines so this is a good one just to jog the memory

    ( Reply )
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    Meredith May 16th

    A wonderfully useful tutorial. Thank you.

    ( Reply )
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    komfushee May 16th

    Nice Tutorial !
    But, how do you modify the shape to transform the letter T ?
    it’s just after “Layer>Type>Convert to Shape”

    ( Reply )
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    oyunlar May 20th

    thank you so much very nice

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    Tim May 21st

    really cool ones, full respect for such type tool techniques.. :)

    ( Reply )
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    tmrrw June 2nd

    tHANKS. gOOd WOrKS :)

    ( Reply )
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    Bendik June 5th

    Thanks alot for a great tut. I’ve been searching the web forever to find beginner tutorials like the ones on this site. Love the guy who recommended it.

    ( Reply )
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    Alyssa June 16th

    Awesome article! I really didn’t know you could do so many different things. I’m now inspired to go make some sweet typography graphic. Thanks!

    ( Reply )
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    John June 25th

    Thanks, i found this a very helpful tutorial indeed.

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    Bobby July 1st

    I cant believe how underestimated the type tool is. Thanks for a great beginner guide

    ( Reply )
  129. Ooh, type on a path, opens up a whole new world! Thanks!!

    ( Reply )
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    amar jain July 16th

    The way you have explained each and everything is just superb!Thanks a lot!

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    V.T.Sharravanan July 19th

    I So much can be done in one tool, think of others. That was a great job. Thanks

    ( Reply )
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    Quintin July 20th

    It’s always great go go back to basics every now and again – sometimes you’ll pick up something you missed the first time through. I know I did.

    Thanks, Alvaro.

    ( Reply )
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    Sujata Joshi July 24th

    Thank you for this wonderfully tutorial.

    Thanks!, Alvaro

    ( Reply )
  134. It help me so much thank you guys!

    ( Reply )
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    Fabian Lujan August 4th

    excelente álvaro!!!
    thanks!!

    ( Reply )
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    Multimedia Design August 6th

    Starting from the beginning is a great place to start. Awesome tutorial!

    ( Reply )
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    Multimedia Design August 10th

    Great tutorial. I’ve been using PS for years and even with formal training, there were some points (no pun intended!) I missed.

    ( Reply )
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    Multimedia Design August 10th

    Oops. I thot I’d seen this somewhere before! LOL Still a good tutorial the second time around haha

    ( Reply )
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    lucky August 15th

    simply superb

    ( Reply )
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    lucky August 15th

    simply superb……:)

    ( Reply )
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    Hotdog August 25th

    well done must have took you like years lol just amzing how u go through every use the type tool has people seem to underestimate what it can do !

    ( Reply )
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    prabhakar September 11th

    thanks and good tutorial

    ( Reply )
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    mesh October 18th

    it wont let me type it has the little blinking cursor or dot but when i type its so small its like a line and i put it on 72 font size i have to put it on 1296 just to see it and its still kinda small help?

    ( Reply )
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    Donald October 20th

    Great Tut! There are a quite a few tools I didn’t know exactly what they did, now I do.

    ( Reply )
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    Jack November 2nd

    Thanks its very helpful…
    Please see my portfolio. http://www.pioneeroutsourcing.com

    ( Reply )
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    rvv November 3rd

    thanks and good tutorial

    ( Reply )
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    Sudheendra Sathya November 3rd

    Nice Tutorial. Thanks fot the TIPs.

    ( Reply )
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    November 3rd