Photoshop® CS3 Layers Bible

Chapter 4. Creating Text with Type Layers

In many areas, Photoshop has improved in leaps and bounds from one version to the next, and its Type tool is a prime example. In fact, the Type tool in CS3 is so smooth, powerful, and easy to use that it's almost a different animal compared to its ancestors. In version 4, for example, once you created your type layer, that was it — you were stuck with it. If you spelled something wrong, forgot to capitalize a letter, or used the wrong font, you had to start over.

Thankfully, those days are long gone, and with CS3 you have a Type tool to rival even a word processor or publishing package, with features such as:

• In-place editing: In the early days, you had to type your text into a separate dialog box, which was a drag. Now you can type and edit text directly on the canvas — what you see is 100 percent what you get.

• Totally re-editable type: You can go back and change the wording of your text as many times as you want. Even if you add effects and warp the text out of all recognition, it's still editable!

• Vector type layers: By default, the Type tool stores text as vectors in special type layers, which means you can scale, rotate, or skew your type layer as much as you want without losing any quality.

• A range of advanced character formatting features: These include a plethora of kerning options, control over leading, a choice of anti-aliasing methods, and a range of faux (simulated) styles such as bold, italic, superscript and subscript — great if ...