Kerning, Tracking, and Leading

See Adobe Photoshop: Tips and Tricks for similar articles.

When working with type, you should understand the difference between kerning, tracking, and leading.

Kerning

Kerning refers to the space between pairs of letters. You want the amount of kerning to be enough that your letters don’t look crowded (unless that’s a mood that you’re going for) and small enough that the letters flow together and are easily readable. For larger titles, typographers will adjust the space between each letter to get it just right. Some characters require more space between them, and other characters require less.

With smaller text, kerning isn’t as important, because smaller letters means smaller spaces between them which makes it difficult to detect small kerning problems.

Tracking

Tracking is similar to kerning. It controls the overall space between a selection of letters. By adjusting the tracking of a text layer, you can control the space evenly between all of that layer’s characters. Tracking is usually referred to using the terms loose and tight.

  • Tight tracking moves the characters closer together. Tightening the tracking can make a long title or credit fit on one line while keeping the font size the same.
  • Loose tracking spaces out characters. Loosening the tracking can make a complex font or all uppercase characters more readable, or just spread out text across more space.

Leading

Leading (rhymes with bedding) controls the vertical space between lines of text. The default leading is based on the font size and works well in most cases. In some cases, tweaking the leading can increase readability or make two lines of a title seem more unified. Too little leading, however, can cause certain characters of a line of text to overlap the line of text below it, which usually decreases readability. The term leading comes from the printing practice of using lead strips to separate lines.

The following diagram shows the difference between the three terms: kerning, tracking, and leading Notice that the tracking of the fourth line uses the same font and font size as the other three lines, but the tracking is much tighter.

Written by Nat Dunn. Follow Nat on Twitter.


Related Articles

  1. ChatGPT Explains Photoshop Neural Filters
  2. Kerning, Tracking, and Leading (this article)
  3. How to Create a Solid-Color Fill Layer in Adobe Photoshop
  4. How to Change Color in Parts of an Image in Adobe Photoshop
  5. How to Create a 3D Sphere in Adobe Photoshop
  6. How to Apply a Perspective Warp in Adobe Photoshop
  7. How to Use the Black & White Adjustment Layer in Adobe Photoshop
  8. How to Create Image Slices Using Existing Guides in Adobe Photoshop
  9. How to Use a Gradient Mask in Adobe Photoshop
  10. How to Save an Action Set in Adobe Photoshop
  11. How to Create 3D Extruded Text in Adobe Photoshop
  12. Convert Point Text to Paragraph Text in Photoshop CC
  13. How to Prepare an Image for Print Production in Adobe Photoshop
  14. How to Use the Magic Wand in Adobe Photoshop
  15. How to Apply an Iris Blur Effect in Adobe Photoshop
  16. How to Apply Lighting Effects in Adobe Photoshop
  17. How to Use the Clone Source Panel in Adobe Photoshop
  18. How to Create a 3D Postcard in Adobe Photoshop
  19. How to Create a Custom Warp in Adobe Photoshop
  20. How to Use Variable Fonts in Adobe Photoshop
  21. How to Apply a Tilt-Shift Blur Effect in Adobe Photoshop
  22. How to Use Panels in Adobe Photoshop
  23. How to Use the Curvature Pen Tool in Adobe Photoshop
  24. How to Use Retouching and Restoration in Adobe Photoshop
  25. How to Work with Stroke Smoothing in Adobe Photoshop
  26. How to Use Brush Blending Modes in Adobe Photoshop
  27. How to Insert Action Stops in Adobe Photoshop
  28. How to Copy CSS for Text and Shape Layers in Adobe Photoshop
  29. How to Apply and Copy Layer Styles in Adobe Photoshop
  30. How to Apply Content-Aware Scaling in Adobe Photoshop
  31. How to Use Quick Share in Adobe Photoshop
  32. How to Use Guides and Organization in Adobe Photoshop
  33. How to Place and Align Thumbnails on a Page in Adobe Photoshop
  34. How to Use Blending Modes for Simple Color Correction in Adobe Photoshop