Written by Steve Patterson. In the first two tutorials in our series on working with type in Photoshop, we learned how to add point type to a document, best for small amounts of text on a single line, and how to add area type, which is a better choice for larger blocks of text on multiple lines.

In both of those tutorials, we saw that whenever we have the Type Tool selected, the Options Bar along the top of the screen gives us quick access to a handful of commonly-used text options, like font selection, text color, and so on.

Photoshop includes more advanced text options as well, but we won't find them in the Options Bar. Instead, they're found in the Character and Paragraph panels. In this tutorial, we'll cover the Character panel options, then in the next tutorial, we'll look at the additional options in the Paragraph panel!

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Accessing The Character Panel

One way to access the Character panel in Photoshop is by going up to the Window menu in the Menu Bar along the top of the screen, which opens a list of all the panels that are available to us, and choosing Character from the list. A checkmark to the left of the panel's name means its already open somewhere on your screen:

Another way, with the Type Tool selected, is to click on the small Character and Paragraph panels toggle icon in the Options Bar:

Either way opens the Character panel, as well as the Paragraph panel because they're grouped together into a single panel group. We can switch between the two panels by clicking on their name tabs at the top of the group. The Character panel is the one that's selected and open by default:

Font Selection And Text Color

The Character panel is sort of like an extended version of the Options Bar when it comes to working with type because most of the same options we'd find in the Options Bar are also found in the Character panel (I said "most" because one of the options from the Options Bar is found not in the Character panel but in the Paragraph panel, as we'll see in the next tutorial). For example, the Options Bar lets us choose our font, font style and font size:

These same font, style and size options are also found at the top of the Character panel. It makes no difference if you set them in the Options Bar or the Character panel:

Likewise, we can choose a color for our text by clicking on the color swatch in the Options Bar:

Or we can click on the color swatch in the Character panel. Again, it makes no difference which one you choose. Either one will open Photoshop's Color Picker where we can select the text color we need:

Anti-Aliasing

One option we haven't looked at yet that's also available in both the Options Bar and the Character panel is Anti-Aliasing. In the Options Bar, it's located directly to the right of the font size option:

In the Character panel, the Anti-Aliasing option is found in the lower right corner:

Anti-aliasing is used to keep the edges of the letters looking smooth. Without any form of anti-aliasing, most letters would appear blocky and jagged around the edges. Here's a zoomed-in view of the top half of a letter S with no anti-aliasing applied. Notice how blocky and rough the edges are:

With anti-aliasing applied, however, the edges appear much smoother. Photoshop actually adds some extra pixels around the edges to help create a smoother transition between the text color and the color of the background behind it:

Photoshop gives us a few different anti-aliasing methods to choose from (Sharp, Crisp, Strong, and Smooth) and each will have a slightly different effect on the overall appearance of your type. The default method is Sharp and I rarely change it to anything else, but feel free to try each one out and choose the one that you think looks best:

Leading

One of the type options found in the Character panel that's not available in the Options Bar is Leading which controls the amount of space between lines of type. By default, Leading is set to Auto:

Keeping the Leading option set to Auto can sometimes give decent results, but you can adjust the line spacing by first making sure you have your Type layer selected in the Layers panel, then either entering a new value manually into the Leading input box or by clicking on the small triangle to the right of the input box and choosing from a list of preset leading amounts ranging from 6 pt up to 72 pt. Here's an example of some text using Auto leading:

With Auto leading, Photoshop sets the leading amount to 120% of your font size. I'll lower the value to 36 pt, which is the same as my font size:

With the Leading value lowered, the lines of text now appear closer together:

The general rule with leading is simply to choose a value that makes your text look natural and easily readable, and it will depend a lot on the font you've chosen. If there seems to be too much or too little space between your lines of text, adjust the leading value accordingly.

Using Scrubby Sliders

Before we continue with our look at the other type options in the Character panel, one thing I should point out is that if you're using Photoshop CS or higher, an easy way to adjust many of the options in the Character panel (as well as in the Paragraph panel and the Options Bar) is by using scrubby sliders which allow us to change an option's value simply by dragging the mouse!

To access an option's scrubby slider, move your mouse cursor over the option's icon directly to the left of its input box. Not all options in Photoshop can use a scrubby slider, but if it's available, your cursor will change into the scrubby slider icon, which looks like a hand with the index finger pointed up and small left and right arrows on either side of it. With the scubby slider icon visible, click and hold your mouse button down, then drag left or right. As you drag, you'll see the value in the input box changing. It's much faster and easier than typing values in manually, especially when you don't know the exact value you need:

Tracking

Tracking, another type option found only in the Character panel, controls the amount of space between a range of letters or characters. It's located directly below the Leading option and is set to 0 by default:

To adjust the tracking value, you can click on the triangle to the right of the input box and choose from a list of preset values, you can enter a value manually, or you can click and hold your mouse button down on the option's icon and drag left or right using the scrubby slider that I described a moment ago. Using a negative tracking value will move the letters or characters closer together, while a positive value will spread them further apart.

To adjust the tracking for all of the text on a Type layer at once, simply select the Type layer itself in the Layers panel, then adjust the Tracking value in the Character panel. Or, you can first select part of the text, then adjust the tracking specifically for the selected range of letters. Here, I selected the word "space" in the sentence by double-clicking on it with the Type Tool, then I increased the tracking value to add more space between the letters in the word without affecting any other part of the sentence:

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