Trust the type designer's kerning

There are many things to obsess about when working with typography. On such subject is kerning. And many designers seem to spend a lot of time tweaking the kerning when setting headers, wordmarks and other lines of type. I suppose that's understandable when working with your own design, an artistic script or display type – one would like to have a balanced word image. But I must admit I mostly leave the kerning option set to standard ("metrics" in Indesign). For is it not true that the kerning is thoroughly tried and tested by the type designers? Should one really spend time changing the setting to "optical" in Indesign and go through every space between the letters to arrive at something that feels… good enough?

Hoefler&Co. writes:

"[The typeface] is spaced and kerned to perform in most circumstances without the need for manual intervention. In applications that offer multiple options for kerning type, always use the default kerning that’s native to the typefaces (labeled auto in Illustrator, and metrics in InDesign) — never use the setting for optical kerning.

So-called ‘optical kerning’ was originally developed as an automated assist for fonts that lack kerning. But applied to a professional typeface, it overrides the visual decisions made by the font’s designers, and instead spaces characters using a mathematical model. It routinely misjudges common pairs and ignores important context, creating erratic and disruptive rhythms. Because its algorithms are subject to change with each software update, ‘optical kerning’ can cause text to be reflowed without notice."

Thoughts?

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