> PHOTOSHOP USER>^ OCTOBER 2020[ 52 ]
As graphic designers, type plays a big part in what we create. Photo-
shop has some powerful tools for creating type but it also has some
great little hidden features, so I’d like to share with you some of my
favorite type tips.- CHANGE FONT PREVIEW SIZE
This may seem like a really simple tip, but many people don’t realize
this feature even exists. For those of us who get frustrated by the
small font previews in the font drop-down menu in the Options Bar
and Character panel, don’t worry! You can easily solve this right in
the Type menu (not the Preferences). Simply go up to the Type menu
and select Font Preview Size. There you’ll have options for None (no
preview at all), Small, Medium, Large, Extra Large, and Huge (kinda
reminds me of how my T-shirt size has increased over the years!).
13. ALTERNATE LETTERS FOR BETTER-LOOKING TYPE
One cool feature introduced into the Adobe stable of apps was the
ability to use alternative characters in decorative typefaces. For exam-
ple, letters with swooshes and curls may require a different kind of
swoosh or curl when next to certain characters. The decorative font
Lust, which you can find on Adobe Fonts, is a great example. Type
out a word and highlight any letter with the Type tool (T). If it has
alternatives, a small series of boxes will appear below the highlighted
letter showing you the alternative options. Just click on one to change
the current style. If you have the Glyphs panel open (see previous tip),
you’ll also see all the alternative characters display as you select each
letter. (If you don’t have the Glyphs panel open, just click the triangle at
the end of the series of boxes below the highlighted letter to open the
panel.) It’s a really great way of making your type a little fancier! - USING GLYPHS, THE HIDDEN CHARACTERS
Another hidden and sometimes lost type gem are glyphs, all the
additional characters that come with a font. I covered the power
of glyphs in the September edition of Photoshop User, so just
to recap, glyphs are the extra characters in a typeface. The most
common are the symbols that run along the top of your keyboard,
such as !, @, £, $, %, ^, &, *, (, ), _, and +, but many typefaces/fonts
also include fractions,
symbols for trademark
and copy right, foreign
symbols, alternate char -
acters, and more. Some
type faces have an enor-
mous number of glyphs;
some just have a few.
To find them, simply
go to Type >Panels>
Glyphs Panel.
14. FAUX CONTROLS IN THE CHARACTER PANEL
Occasionally, you may want to apply styles such as bold, italic,
underline, strikethrough, and more to your type, but in some
cases (excuse the pun!), you might find that the font you’re using
doesn’t have a bold or italic version. That’s okay because the
Character panel (Type>Panels>Character Panel) has you covered
with faux effects. These are the icons that sit in the lower third
of the Character panel. You can use any one or multiples of these
to create different type styles. To undo them, just make sure
the type layer is active and click on the icon in the Character panel
to turn it off.
15. VARIABLE FONTS
Variable fonts were introduced a couple of years ago. These are
fonts that have the traditional versions such as bold, regular, italic,
condensed, etc., but you can also manually control some of those
settings in the Properties panel (Window>Properties). Let’s use the
font Acumin Variable Concept as an example. It’s a font that comes
with all of those options as standard, but you can manually control
its Weight, Width, and Slant. Each is a live, adjustable control. Other
Variable Concept fonts may have slightly different controls.