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Photoshop 7 adds several
major new capabilities, such as the File Browser, the Healing
Brush, and Tool Presets. But you'll also be quite pleased with
the dozens of little tweaks in the program, including some
long-awaited improvements in the type department.
Photoshop is an image editing program, not an
illustration or page layout program. The fact tat it does so
much with type continues to be a blessing. Rather than bemoaning
the fact that type on a path and text wrapping aren't possible
(yet), let's celebrate what is new in Photoshop 7.
SPELL CHECKING
Just a few short versions ago, Photoshop text capability was
restricted to creating selections in the shape of letters. It
now has a rather sophisticated type engine with many powerful
features. Among the newest features is the long-awaited spell
checker.
The Check Spelling dialog box is opened through
Photoshop 7's Edit menu. Note the Check All Layers box in the
lower-left corner. When an image has multiple type layers, that
box will be available. When deselected, only the active type
layer is checked. If a non-type layer is active in the Layers
Palette, the next type layer upward is checked.
Photoshop automatically switches dictionaries,
even in the middle of a sentence, while checking spelling. The
language (and dictionary) are set in the Character palette. You
can set the appropriate language/dictionary for a specific word
or phrase, then switch back to the primary language with the
click of a button. That allows you to easily insert a quick
foreign word or phrase to dress things up, without having the
spell checker trip on it every time. (And if your foreign
language skills are comparable to mine, having your word or
phrase spell-checked in its original language is
oh-so-very-important, n'est pas?
FIND AND REPLACE TEXT
Although not particularly sophisticated, the Find and Replace
Text command is certainly adequate for an image-editing program.
Enter the search target in the Find What text box and the
desired replacement in the Change To text box.
Adobe's certainly not trying to knock Microsoft
Word out of the ballpark with this feature, but it is a welcome
addition.
IMPROVED CHARACTER PALETTE
As the Help Desk Director for the National Association of
Photoshop Professionals, I can give you a good estimate of the
number of folks who lost hours of productivity due to Photoshop
6's Faux Bold feature: Lots! (I don't want to get too precise
with my estimate....) This type "style," buried in the Character
palette menu, prevented the application of text warping. It
sometimes was applied automatically or by accident, and it was
very difficult to find for many. Faux Bold, as well as Faux
Italic and six other type attributes, can be applied by using
buttons in the Character palette, and the button itself
indicates whether the attribute is applied.
Notice in the lower-right corner of the dialog
box the pop-up menu set to Sharp. This new anti-aliasing option
is designed to help keep small Web text legible, but it's
appropriate for a wide variety of type.
SMART QUOTES
Smart quotation marks and apostrophes, also know as printer's
marks, curve in toward the material being cited. The alternative
(often called dumb quotes) are straight and identical at the
beginning and end of the quoted material. A comparison is shown
below. Smart quotes are selected (or deselected) in the General
pane of Photoshop's Preferences.
These are small steps toward full-fledged type
and text handling, but steps in the right direction. Photoshop
will never rival a page layout program for type-tweaking and
placement capabilities, but many of us are making far fewer
trips to Illustrator to add type to our Photoshop images. |