How to Kern text in photoshop
by June 27, 2010 8:34 pm 14,460 views11
Kerning is the process of changing the amount of white space in-between letters. This technique should be used when creating any graphics with a large heading or a logo. With experience you may find the white space simply glares out at you in between the letters meaning that you are able to adjust the kerning easily by eye.
To change the kerning in Photoshop using the Character Panel:
In the image below, the top lettering is the original and the bottom orange lettering will be changed.

Click with the cursor between the two letters (into the white space that you want to change). In this case I want to reduce the white space between the ‘K’ and the ‘e’ .

Open the Character Panel if it’s not already open by going to Window > Character

Find the area with the AV icon on the left and choose a value from the drop down menu. I have used -50 on this particular area of white space.


Change the kerning using short cuts:
A quicker way to do this if you can reme
mber the keyboard shortcuts is to click with the cursor between the two letters (into the white space that you want to change).
Press the alt key and use the left and right cursor keys to close and widen the gap between the 2 letters.
Below is a before and after picture, you will see there is only a minute change between the 2, but you will notice that the 2nd reads better and would also display better especially if you are using it on some type that will be displayed at a large size or on a logo.

Auto adjust the kerning:
To auto adjust the kerning, select the range of letters you want to Kern. In the kerning drop down menu select ‘Optical’. This will automatically adjust the lettering based on the shapes of the letters.


Kerning should not be confused with Tracking.
katie r March 25, 2012 at 8:15 pm
thank you
hannah March 25, 2012 at 10:59 pm
you’re welcome 🙂
Amy July 25, 2012 at 8:26 pm
great tutorial, super easy to follow and very helpful!! THANK YOU!
hannah July 25, 2012 at 8:28 pm
You are welcome 🙂 thanks for your comment
Lee November 17, 2012 at 2:35 am
Thanks so much! This is so helpful to know. Before I would just start a different text layer so that I had control over the spacing between letters.
Aaron Smith March 30, 2014 at 7:37 am
Thank you very much for the article!!
Any way to adjust the kerning in the TTF file? For instance, in my particular font, it looks very good but the spacing is very wrong for dashes.
Thanks.
fersy July 4, 2014 at 8:16 am
very helpful tutorial! thank you very much!
Bob Littleroot October 2, 2014 at 4:40 pm
I really appreciate this tip. I had been doing similar things in Premiere for video titles but could not find it in Photoshop. Thank you.
sarah October 27, 2017 at 4:27 pm
I am using adobe caslon pro and trying to set the title of a book on the spine (in photoshop). I want to add some space between the letters for readability. The “Th” in the word “The” seems to have a hard kerning pair that can not be over-ridden – the two letters basically touch. I have tried to adjust this with the letter spacing tool, and with individual kerning. Nothing works. Except to have it all caps – which I was trying to avoid.
Any suggestions?
Umur Akayd?n October 29, 2018 at 2:08 pm
Thank you so much 🙂
hannah December 13, 2018 at 8:30 pm
Thank you for commenting 🙂