TIP 3: KERNING
The term, kerning, means adjusting the space between pairs of
letters. Poorly kerned (or unkerned) text looks funky and can
be distracting to readers. The problem is more noticeable with
less expensive (or free) fonts, scripts, and decoratives (especially
those that mimic handwriting). The amount of space each
letter needs on either side of it differs according to which letter
comes next; for example, an uppercase A can tuck in closer to
an uppercase V than it can to an uppercase M. So, you’ll want
to kern each space individually.
To do this, position the cursor between the first two letters
you want to kern (don’t highlight any characters). To widen the
space, increase the value in the kerning field; and to narrow
the space, decrease the value (you can use a negative num-
ber if you have to). Here’s the Keyboard shortcut: Place your
cursor between the two letters and then press-and-hold the
Option (PC: Alt) key while tapping the Left or Right Arrow
key on your keyboard.
In this example, the top paragraph is unkerned and the bot-
tom one is kerned. Various letter pairs were tweaked, though
a setting of –20 was used to decrease the space between the
H and the e in Helmet.
TIP 4: TRACKING
When you want to change the spacing between all the letters
in a word by the same amount, this is called “Tracking.” Just
highlight the word(s) you want to track, trot over to the Char-
acter panel, and adjust the setting circled here. The Keyboard
shortcut is to highlight the text you want to track, and then
press-and-hold the Option (PC: Alt) key while tapping the Left
or Right Arrow key on your keyboard.
In this example, the words “THE” and “CONFERENCE”
were both tracked to a setting of 400.
TIP 5: BASELINE SHIFT
The invisible line on which text sits is called its baseline. Chang-
ing this line can make a character appear higher or lower than
other characters on the same line (like an exaggerated super- or
subscript control). Basically, this setting keeps you from having
to put a character on its own type layer in order to manually posi-
tion it using the Move tool. To adjust the baseline of a character,
word, or phrase, highlight the text, and in the Character panel,
change the setting circled here. If you don’t highlight anything
before tweaking this setting, Photoshop applies the adjustment
to the next thing you type. Here, the “D” in “Domestic” was
highlighted and the baseline shift changed to –30.39.
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