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A good sample to practice several typography tasks.
Small characters are too fine to fit with large characters.
Faux Bold is used to thicken the small characters.
Baseline shift 15 and and kerning value of -200 produce
the result here.
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You have the power now to make great looking text. Let's move on to
those special situations which come up all the time. You need the freedom
to move selected characters up or down, and in PhotoShop, you will use
Baseline for this task.
In the sample at the left, several typography actions
have been applied. To move the "oo" and the "ot"
up, each was selected and a positive value was entered for Baseline.
The next sample shows the text after font sizes were changed (highlight
the character you wish to change and specify fonts size) and before
baseline shift was applied. We still have some kerning to do, but that
can wait until we move the text up.
Also, notice how the large letters appear to be much thicker
than the small letters? This is not surprising, since the large character
is 80 points and the small is only 40 points. We can cheat a little
to solve that problem.  Simply
highlight the smaller letters and check the Faux Bold box to activate.
The letters become just a little thicker and balance with the larger
font.
Now we are ready to move the characters up. Highlight
the "oo" and specify a baseline value of 15. In this sample
shown at the left, I have also moved the "oo" in under the
"T" with a kerning value of -200.
For the final look shown above, you will repeat the baseline
shift for the lower word, using a baseline value of 7. Kern the letters
in both the top and the bottom words.
Finally, you want the lower word to snug up into the spaces
of the top word. This is accomplished by adding two spaces in front
of the word "Hot" and reducing the leading. The leading in
this case was set to 50. I then kerned the space between the first word
and the beginning of the second word as shown here.
And that's it. A little final kerning once you have the
full view with color, and you have a fully editable, but interesting
presentation of your message.
Typography is one of the few elements of design where
studying the subject can make it easy to measure difference. There are
many rules, which makes it easier to absorb and put into practice. Once
you know what to watch for, much of typography can be accomplished by
what looks right. I find the "right for sure" feeling comes
much more easily to me with type than it does with any other element
of design. So ... even if you do not have the creative genius to become
a world famous designer (like most of us in this field), you can learn
the rules and become a superb typographer. Great type shows instantly.
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Insert the cursor where you would like the quotes and
type in the correct keystrokes from the list at the right. That is all
you need to create typographer's quotes.
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Typographers quotes
I love topics like this one. Insert your cursor where you would like
the quotes to appear. Type the correct keystrokes from the list below.
That's it. (Of course, if all techniques were that easy, I probably
wouldn't have this job.)
Keystrokes for Typographer's quotes:
PC (use the number pad and hold the ALT key down until you have
typed in all the numbers)
ALT 0147 for opening quotes
ALT 0148 for closing quotes
ALT 0145 for single opening quotes
ALT 0146 single closing quotes
Mac
Option [ for opening quotes
Option Shift [ for closing quotes
Option ] for opening single quotes
Option Shift ] for closing single quotes
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Use the spacebar to move the second line over to the
approximate location and then kerning to fine tune the alignment.
In the main view, confirm the alignment by placing
a guideline. Adjust if necessary.
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Aligning text with quotes
We have already done almost the same exercise as we will do here in
the "Too Hot" sample above. Type in all your text to start,
including the typographer's quotes and with the line breaks you desire
for the final text (use your preview to make sure your text is fitting
as it should on the main canvas). Adjust your character and line spacing
to desired positions.
Insert your cursor at the beginning of the second row. Add two spacebar
spaces (or the number of spaces that brings the second row as close
as possible to lining up with the text in the first row. Increase or
decrease your kerning between the second space and the first character
of the second line. The text in the top line should line up perfectly
with the text in the second line. Adjust until you are satisfied with
the result. I will usually check the positioning in the main window
by placing a guideline.
You now have the tools for excellent typography in PhotoShop.
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