Photoshop 6 Working Review pg 2: Production Graphics with Wendy Peck at webreference.com

Photoshop 6 Working Review: Powerful Text Upgrades

Text entry is now directly on the canvas, with the character options on the new toolbar.

Wrapping text in Photoshop? You bet! Start counting the number of keystrokes you will save with this feature alone.

Of course, we must not forget the text manipulation with the Warp Text option.

Kiss good-bye to the text entry window. Text is now entered directly into the document. This is another of those things that can make the world seem off balance for a few minutes after years of entering text into a tiny box. It will only take a few minutes for the smile to appear though. I don't care how good the preview capability was, there is nothing that can compare to on-screen text editing. The line between vector and raster graphic programs is becoming much less defined.

To make it even better, we come back to the toolbar. The controls for your text are all right there for you. If you prefer, or if you must add kerning or tracking to your text, you can activate the familiar Character palette from the toolbar.

For a real treat, select your Text tool, then click and drag. An easily resized text box appears ready for you to enter paragraph text that wraps to the borders of the box. Edit text within the box by highlighting text. You will also find a Paragraph palette within the toolbar with indent, justification (full justification, too) and hyphenation controls. In short, much like an illustration program.

When not in edit mode, text can be treated as any other object, including transforming paragraph text. Text was one operation that would often send me back to an illustration program. I suspect I will make fewer trips now.

So what's missing from the text capabilities? Spell check. I hate to think what results will come from paragraph text without a spell check. Perhaps the next release?

But wait ... there is much more. Like vector objects, and I mean real vectors, not just paths. Take a peek.

Next page

Photoshop 6 Working Review Tutorial Index

Photoshop 6 Working Review Start
Powerful Text Upgrades
Lock and Love Those Layer Sets
Vectors, Wonderful Vectors
ImageReady is Ready