The Extra-Strength Tips for the Clients and Friends of Ben Willmore (www.digitalmastery.com):

Photoshop's Text tool has been the subject of four tips already, so you might think that we've exhausted the possibilities. But the truth is that the Text tool has so much to offer we can easily squeeze some more goodies from this very robust feature.

Did you know that there is a special folder for fonts that will only show up in Adobe Applications? You'll find it at Users>Your User Name>Library>Application Support>Adobe>Fonts in OSX. It should be available in other OS's, but I don't know the exact location on each OS, so just do a search for a folder called Adobe and then look for a fonts folder inside that one. Now, you might be thinking "why would I only want certain fonts to show up in Adobe applications?" Well, I use Photoshop, ImageReady and GoLive to update my website and I use QuarkXPress for page layout (although I am slowly transitioning to InDesign). I use pixel-based fonts for some of my web graphics because they were designed for on-screen use and I want them to only show up in the programs I use for web design (so I don't accidentally use them for print projects). I can't quite get that to happen, but I can get them to only show up in Adobe programs.

Speaking of fonts for the web, when creating tiny text that will be used on the Internet, I often use the fonts that are named after cities (on the Mac). Those are the ones that are designed from scratch for on-screen use. But when you use them, you'll have to experiment with the size because some are optimized for particular sizes. For instance, Geneva works best at 9pt and Chicago is best at 12pt size. These fonts will also look best when anti-aliasing (in the Options Bar in 6.0) is turned off. If you use other fonts, then the anti-aliasing setting should improve their appearance at small sizes. Just make sure you try all the choices available in that menu. Or, if you'd like to expand your range of those types of fonts, then just do a search on google.com for pixel fonts, which should send you to sites like atomicmedia.net where you can buy them.

Have you ever noticed that certain fonts in your fonts pop-up menu have extra letters next to them? That happens when you have two versions of the same font installed. Photoshop will put a (T1) next to the Postscript Type 1 version of the font, a (TT) next to the TrueType version, or a (OT) for an Open Type font. That way you can make an educated guess as to which of the two identically named fonts you might want to use. I still stick with Postscript Type 1 for most things.

If you look in your Layers palette, you might find that certain Type Layers have a yellow warning triangle along with the "T" of a type layer, that's an indication that the typeface you've chosen is not currently installed in your operating system. When a font is missing, you will not be able to edit the text without having Photoshop substitute a different typeface. You might also run into a gray warning triangle on a Type layer. That's an indication that the text will be reflowed if it is edited, and that might change the way the paragraph breaks into multiple lines. You'll get that symbol anytime you open an image that was created in a previous version of Photoshop.

Command-H usually hides the edges of things, but with text, it hides the highlighting you get when you drag across a range of text. To hide the box that contains your text, type Option-Command-H. If you happen to be using OSX, that key command is also used to hide all the other applications you are currently running. Photoshop should still recognize it, but you might have to type it twice.

And finally here's one of my favorite ways to work with text: In Photoshop 7 you can save presets for all your tools. So, I plug in the settings I like to use in the Options Bar for the Text tool (like Optima, 24pt bold) and then I make sure that I'm not actively editing a Type layer (instead, I just have the Type tool active with the settings I like) and then I click on the Type tool icon that appears at the far left of the Options bar, click on the new preset icon (which looks like a sheet of paper with the corner folded over in the drop down presets palette). Then, then next time I'm about to create a new Type layer, I click on that Type look icon again and choose the preset I'd like to use. I really wish I could use the presets while I'm in the middle of editing a Type layer, but it just doesn't work that way. You must choose the preset before you create a Type layer.

That's it for now. Enjoy typing away.

-Ben Willmore