Adobe Photoshop CS5 One-on-One

4. Establish a few formatting attributes in the options bar. The op-
   tions bar provides access to a few of the most common formatting
   attributes, which are ways to modify the appearance of live text.
   Labeled in Figure 11-7, they are:
   
   
   • Font family. Click the second-from-left arrow to see a list
     of typefaces available on your system. I prefer the term font
     families (or just plain font) because, technically speaking,
     most typefaces include multiple stylistic alternatives, such
     as bold and italic.
     If you purchased the full Adobe
     Creative Suite, select Adobe Caslon
     Pro (look under the Cs). If you
     don’t have this Caslon, select
     Times, Times New Roman, or a
     similar font.
   
   
   • Type style. The type style pop-up menu lists all stylistic al-
     ternatives available for the selected font. Change the style
     to read Bold.
   
   
   • Type size. If using Caslon Pro, set the type size to 33 points.
     For Times or Times New Roman, set the value to 38 points.
   
   
   • Antialiasing. The next menu determines the flavor of
     antialiasing (edge softening) applied to the text. We’ll
     examine this option a bit more in Step 21 (page 365), but
     for now, either Crisp or Sharp will suffice.
   
   
   • Alignment. The alignment options let you align rows of
     type to the left, center, or right. Click the middle icon ( )
     to create center aligned text.
   
   
   • Text color. The color swatch determines the color of the
     type. For the moment, press the D key and then the X key
     to make the swatch white.
   
   
   • Character panel. Click the rightmost of the type tool icons
     to display the Character panel, which offers access to sev-
     eral more formatting attributes. We’ll need this panel a
     few steps from now.
     You can change every single one of these formatting attributes
     after you create your text. Getting a few settings established
     up front merely saves a little time later.
   
   
   
   

Font family

Type style Antialiasing Text color

Type size Alignment Character panel

Figure 11-7.

378 Lesson 11: Text and Shapes