unoutlined fonts - Photoshop vs. Illustrator

[EmerginT]

I guess i'm just curious - wanting to know how things work.
If someone sends an Illustrator file and forgets to outline their fonts and i don't have the font - it replaces it with something else, but if i open it in Photoshop, it opens fine - which is pretty convenient. But why does it work that way?
And does it always work - so far it looks to me to work pretty well.

[doctorfoz]

I believe that Photoshop takes a 'best guess' at what the font should look like. And I'm fairly certain that when opening files in Photoshop with missing fonts, there are issues when you come to rasterize the type - or flatten the image. But there are greater minds than mine on this forum, I'm sure someone will be along soon with the correct answer.

[longboy]

I believe that depending on how it's saved, the fonts can be embedded for other applications (like Photoshop or a page layout program). Are these .ai or .eps files?

[urstwile]

It seems as if Photoshop somehow saves raster memory of a font connected to a file, so that if a font is missing when the file is opened, you're basically converting device independent (vector) font information to completely raster information (which produces that error message you get when you do that). Which can affect the quality of the edges of your type, depending on the situation.

It'll only truly substitute a font if you try to edit the layer it sits on, otherwise it'll just rasterize it. At least that's how it seems to work.

Since Photoshop is essentially a raster program, with some vector capabilities, you probably don't notice an impact. However, Illustrator is a vector program, so a missing font would be more apparent.

That makes no sense whatsoever to anyone else but me, does it. :rolleyes:

[hewligan]

^^ Urst's basically right.

Including vector data is a relatively late addition to the photoshop file format (well, about version 6 or 7, which is probably ages ago for some of you young 'uns...), and many programs that would otherwise be able to handle a photoshop file can't deal with vector data in them. So photoshop also includes a rasterised version of any type/vector layer. And if you don't have the relevant font, that's what gets displayed.

So, while it will display, you no longer have editable vector type in that layer really (as Ursst said, if you try to edit it, photoshop will substitute a font), and your life will be much better if you just sort out that missing font.

[urstwile]

Whew, thanks Hewligan. I guess I don't feel as arcane now as I did after I proofread my previous post. :D

[doctorfoz]

so I was sort of right then?

[longboy]

After reading hewligan's post, I'm a bit confused. I thought the OP was talking about opening an Illustrator file in Photoshop (without the proper fonts on the computer). Am I reading it wrong?

[EmerginT]

Thanks everyone - pretty interesting - computer programming is such a mystery - I'm glad I can at least see what it's supposed to look like!
All Hail Photoshop!