you need to make sure you installed the plugin to the correct folder, first off. This takes a little bit of finding, as the installer doesn't find the folder for you automatically. then you access them through the Filters menu. (it should show up at the bottom of the list).

Ah, all so intuitive... :-/
Filters, eh? OK then.
But yes, it works!
Thanks much.

Qs 2 & 3 still standing though.

hhp

3) Frank Jonen

Cool. Where can I actually see Jonen's Zapfino Ink?
Some searching on Linotype.com only resulted in me
reaching for some dark chocolate in frustration.

hhp

Zapfino Ink has not been released yet but I've been told Linotype has plans to do it.

Adam

@ Hrant: I went for a Häagen-Dazs instead, but that's quite some time ago now ;)

It's been in the pipeline for three years?!
I think Frank is going to be changing that "industry first" bit...

Anyway, could we please see a sample?

hhp

I might :)

maybe the first person to be sued for leaking a photofont on a public forum :)

Adam,

Better to have/work with BitFonter (and not with PF, or both) ?

So Frank, why not make another PhotoFont and sell it yourself?

> Better to have/work with BitFonter (and not with PF, or both) ?

?
The easiest way to make PhotoFonts (assuming
$500 comes easy to you) is in fact with BitFonter.

hhp

The good thing about the .phf format is that anyone can put a font together simply with a text application.

> (assuming $500 comes easy to you)

coupon, coupon :)

I'm talking about workflow, or FSEW ( fast-simple-efficient-workflow)
For example:
"Note: You cannot yet use standard font management utilities to manage
fonts in the PhF format."

Easy installation

Yep Bitfonter is quite a good way to do Photofonts. Quite good to make any bitmap font for that matter.

On the Mac the simplest way to deploy a photofont is by using the installer that Apple provides for free. On Windows there's the Windows Installer if you can figure it out. :)

Photofonts are a good idea, but a good idea without a real-world application right now. I have no doubt that there will be coming out something useful out of that corner.

> the installer that Apple provides

Where's that?

> without a real-world application

No? Graphic designers don't like colorful type?!
Not the garish stuff that the plug-in comes with certainly,
but doesn't anybody remember the great old Amiga KaraFonts?

hhp

type "Package Maker" in spotlight. Comes for free with the developer tools installation.

Real-world application: An application that anyone can use, not the photoshop toy plug-in. Which is also the reason that I never sold more than case studies. People are interested but once you have to tell them that it'll be some years till they'll be able to use them if at all - they're not that interested anymore.

FJ

Think about it though: are there actually people
who would pay for a font that don't have Photoshop?

That said, I agree it's high time that the FontLab
boys got the browser plug-in working already...

hhp

BTW, when the Photoshop plug-in installs a
photofont, where does the file get copied to?

hhp

There are two folders on Mac:
/Library/Photo Fonts/ and user/Library/Photo Fonts/

It's C:/WINDOWS/Photo Fonts/ and ~/My Documents/Photo Fonts/ on Windows.

Regards,
Johnych

Hrant,

>Anyway, could we please see a sample?

http://community.livejournal.com/ru_typography/331017.html#cutid1

Regards,
Johnych

Thank you Johnych!
And those samples are pretty cool - nice work.

A couple of questions:
1) Did you experience performance issues (maybe only on Windows) when you used the really large sizes of photofonts? I've heard there are problems.
2) Does Photofont support negative kerning, and extensions above/below the em space? I thought it didn't, but in any case the Zapfino example is over 250 pixels high, and more significantly the glyphs overlap laterally!

hhp

Hrant,

1) Yes, some delay may occur when the glyphs should be resampled on the fly. Even on Mac, I don't use Windows. :)
2) Yes, it supports negative kerning. Zapfino Ink is surely kerned.
Extensions? I think yes but not sure.

Regards,
Johnych

Frank,

I'm just beginning to play with Bitfonter and Photofonts. A few questions for you please:

1. What is the purpose of installing the font in the way you describe - using the Apple Installer? I have installed it as a photoshop plugin and it does show up in the filter menu...what does installing it this way do for you?

2. You mentioned that you tried to sell photofonts but people only bought the case studies because there was no way to use them. Is it your experience that designers, who can use the fonts as plug ins, don't need them because they can just design what they want in photoshop anyway? Is there not a market to designers who don't want to be bothered and want to use ready made colorful/image fonts?

3. You mentioned that there were good things to come technologically which could change things. You said this back in April. Can you elaborate on this? Is there anything new you are aware of?

I think it looks like a ridiculous amount of fun to design image fonts with photofonts/bitfonte, and I would like to do them to sell them. Do you think there is no market for them yet? What do you see the landscape to be in the near future?

I would appreciate your thoughts.

Thanks!
Laura

Laura,

Photofont Start is not a photofont. Photofont Start is a Photoshop plugin that lets you use photofonts.

Photofont Start needs to be installed like a normal application (using the Apple installer), and it gets installed in the Photoshop plug-ins folder.

The user can install photofonts in the plugin -- basically, the .phf file is copied to the correct folder. An Apple installer could just put the .phf file in the right location for you.

A.