Accessing Alternates Set in Photoshop

[Jean-Claude Tremblay]

What tools do you use to access alternates sets from opentype fonts in Photoshop? We only have access to the first Stylist Set - Stylist Alternate. How can we access and enter other glyphs from others Stylism Sets number?

[station_two]

What platform, Mac or Win?

[Jean-Claude Tremblay]

Mac, but i’m also interested to know what is available on Windows. For Photoshop CS6, CC and CC2014.

[station_two]

Well, these are user forums, you are not addressing Adobe here.  The volunteer contributors chime in according to whether they have a solution for a specific issue or not. 

I found this link most informative and helpful:

Accessing Contextual Alternatives in Adobe Creative Suite : Get Help

[Jean-Claude Tremblay]

I’m well aware this is a user to user forum. This is why I have asked here to see if someone have found a workaround to something that seems to be lacking in Photoshop. I mean the ability to select glyphs specified in Stylistic Set number (not the Contextual Alternate).

What we need is a Glyph panel in Photoshop, that would solve the problem. I guess we still need to ask for it. Photoshop: Add a Glyphs panel

[station_two]

Is the Mac's Character Viewer it not working for you for this purpose?

Just asking…

[Jean-Claude Tremblay]

The Character Viewer allow us to see Unicode value but do not display OpenType features tags so, it can’t be use for this. I have also tried PopChar™ but it won’t list the OTF features tags either.

[station_two]

…and what exact version of Photoshop?

[MiguelSousa · Accepted solution]

There is no way to access Stylistic Sets in Photoshop.

If you need a workaround: in Illustrator, create a text box and insert the Stylistic Set glyph alternates using the Glyph Panel; then select+copy the Illustrator text and paste it into a Photoshop text box.

[station_two]

Thank you for that, Miguel.

Out of curiosity, in what version did Illustrator begin supporting such Stylistic Features?

Thanks in advance.

[Jean-Claude Tremblay]

I think OpenType features and the Glyph panel was introduced in Illustrator CS back in Octobre 2003!

[station_two]

Thank you, Jean-Claude.

I found scant information on the nature of those enigmatic (for me) "Stylistic Features".  What little I found references CSS and such, which explains why I'm so utterly ignorant of the subject, as I never deal with the web.

[MiguelSousa]

Illustrator does NOT support Stylistic Sets BUT it allows getting to all the glyphs in each font, because it has a Glyphs panel.

Also, Illustrator and Photoshop share the same text composition engine, and this is why the copy+pasting I mentioned in the workaround will work.

Only InDesign supports Stylistic Sets.

[station_two]

Miguel Sousa wrote:

…Only InDesign supports Stylistic Sets.

Now that sounds a lot more logical. Thanks.

[MiguelSousa]

station_two wrote:

Now that sounds a lot more logical. Thanks.

Was there anything less logical about what I wrote before?

[station_two]

Not about what you wrote, but in my reading of it, which suggested that inDesign did not support type to the same extent that Illustrator did.

There was mention of Illustrator earlier, but I hadn't seen any of InDesign until your post on which I commented.

[V_K_1]

Here's a great way to do this really easily, and you don't need Illustrator. But you do need to be working on a keyboard that has a number pad.

Every letter, symbol etc. has an ASCII code (old-school code from telegraphy days but it sits behind most computer software still). Find the right ASCII code for your symbol and you can add it into just about anything that uses type.

I'm currently adding a ® Registered symbol to a lot of files and using this method (I also used is just now to add the symbol on this reply). I like this particular table to find my code as I have found a few variations:  http://www.theasciicode.com.ar/extended-ascii-code/registered-trademark-symbol-ascii-code-169.html

First look up the ASCII number from the table in the link above. For the Registered symbol it's 0169. Then in Photoshop, draw your text box, select your font and size etc from the Character Panel and start typing as usual. When you want to insert a glyph, hold down the ALT key and ON THE NUMBER PAD type 0169 and you will get the symbol. It does not work using the standard number keys on the top row of the keyboard.

This works with lots of software, not just Photoshop.

[MiguelSousa]

@VmK That will NOT work, because these alternate glyphs do not have codepoints assigned to them. The only way to access them is via OpenType features, or Glyph panel.

[V_K_1]

Ah, now I see what you mean. Sorry, what I suggested was working perfectly for my purposes, but now I've re-read your question I get the difference between what I needed and what you asked about OpenType.  I completely agree that adding a Glyph panel would be fantastic.