Photoshop® CS4 All-in-One For Dummies®

Chapter 3. Creating and Editing Type

In This Chapter

• Discovering different kinds of type

• Getting to know the type tools

• Entering and editing text

• Making type follow a path

• Using the Character and Paragraph panels

• Editing text

• Exploring masking, shaping, and warping effects

Photoshop has morphed into a surprisingly good tool for creating type used in images. Over time, features have been added that let you create paragraphs of text or simple lines of text used as headlines or labels. You can change the spacing between characters, warp your type, check your spelling, or create selections in the shape of text. Drop shadows, beveled type, and other special effects are yours quickly and easily. And you can even place text on or inside a path.

You may still want to use Adobe Illustrator or InDesign to create professional layouts in which you can keep text and image files separate, or where you have to place buckets full of text at small point sizes. But if what you're looking for is a great-looking image that includes great-looking snippets of text, Photoshop can do the job. This chapter introduces you to Photoshop's basic type tools, as well as its more advanced type capabilities.

Selecting a Type Mode

The text you create in Photoshop can be categorized in several different ways, but ultimately, you're either adding just a little text (such as a word or single line of text) or a lot (maybe a paragraph ...