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Voltago · Oct 15, 2003, 08:42 AM

I�ve tested Mac OS X 10.3 Build 7B85 thoroughly and found an annoying �feature� (at least for me!).

It seems that Apple has �tinkered� with the way Panther is displaying fonts. The �infamous� Font Antialiasing feature has become worse!

I�m working on a PowerBook 63 (Pismo) 500Mhz and text is definitely more difficult to read especially in Safari. It seems also that Safari is either partly using bigger sizes of fonts compared to Safari 1.0 in Jaguar or that this fonts are displayed in a subtle different way?! I don�t know if this behavior is because of the new Safari version 1.1. But what I�ve found is that Panther has undergone changes when it comes to displaying fonts on a LCD-Display as you can see under www.apple.com/macosx/features/aqua/. On the right side under �Features in Panther� you can read the following:

Finer LCD Font Antialiasing With �Micro-pixel Positioning�: Read text more easily on flat panel displays.

For me the opposite is true! I know that these things are subjective but I would like to know if there are other people experiencing the same?

Lew · Oct 15, 2003, 09:18 AM

What ColorSync profile are you using, one of the default Apple ones? Try this one and let us know how much of a difference it makes.

Gee4orce · Oct 15, 2003, 09:25 AM

I've personally found font legibility to be much improved in Panther, but YMMV.

eevyl · Oct 15, 2003, 09:39 AM

I also find font antialiasing in Panther much better.

SMacTech · Oct 15, 2003, 09:41 AM

^^ Me too ! I love it on my pismo 400 and mdd867 with 20" ACD.

Musti · Oct 15, 2003, 12:53 PM

Originally posted by Mimizuku no Lew:
What ColorSync profile are you using, one of the default Apple ones? Try this one and let us know how much of a difference it makes.

Looks better on my Ti867. Do you have any more profiles to experiment? Particularly for TiBooks? I couldn't reach the site by copying/pasting the URL.
Thanks.

Lew · Oct 15, 2003, 02:20 PM

Download SuperCal and spend half an hour or so creating a nice fine-tuned profile with it. That's what I used to create that profile and it's far superior to Apple's ColorSync utility

SuperCal� is a visual display calibrator capable of measuring and correcting most conventional displays, including LCDs, CRTs and projectors. SuperCal doesn't require any hardware measurement devices - only your eyeballs - yet it can be much more accurate, based on how well you pay attention to what your doing

.

Nearly all existing calibrators assume that you have a display that behaves like the textbook ideal CRT. They don't consider the fact that LCDs don't behave like CRTs at all, nor the fact that most displays have flaws. This is where SuperCal comes in.

SuperCal lets you accurately measure the response of any display and build a profile with a corrected gamma table that improves the appearance of your display under Mac OS 9 or X. When your display is properly calibrated, you'll notice much smoother tonal gradations and cleaner-looking anti-aliased text.

SuperCal was designed to provide the most accurate calibration possible without the use of a hardware measurement device. Very few users can afford to purchase a hardware calibration device like an X-Rite or Colortron, but all users need a properly calibrated display, whether they are retouching digital images or shopping for clothing on the internet.

nforcer · 03:27 PM

I have had some trouble adapting to the new font displaying in 7B85 as well. Changing Colorsync profiles didn't help. Going under the Appearance control panel and confirming the antialias settings I always use (Standard CRT) was on, didn't help, since they were.

What did help a little bit was to download TinkerTool and change the default Application font back to Lucida Grande 11, instead of that horrid crappy-ass Helvetica 12. I also changed the Labels font setting from Lucida Grande 10 to Lucida Grande 11. Helvetica should not be used in mass, and Lucida Grande 10... well in the words of Dr. Phil, "What was Apple thinking?!!?!" (Mini System Text Font?)

After that, it's just going to take some getting used to. Some of the smaller fonts look taller and more stretched out now, but comparing them to how they looked under Jaguar, they really are a bit more readable. Just not as easily recognizable.

Example of text under 10.2.6:

Example of text under 7B85:

Download those 2 images and open them in Preview, then go back and forth to see the improvements. The Panther text is a little more legible.

I realize there are probably a few cases where text looks worse (in Carbon apps that lack Quartz text rendering since the Silk haxie is not available for 7B85 yet?) But I invite anyone to post images showing such differences. Just confirm the same colorsync, antialias, and font settings are used when comparing Jaguar text rendering to Panther text rendering.

Lew · Oct 15, 2003, 03:36 PM

They both look cack to me because I'm on a LCD

Can someone post a comparison between 10.2 and 10.3 using the LCD anti-aliasing settings?

Mediaman_12 · Oct 15, 2003, 04:23 PM

One of the default screen fonts in Panther is Helvetica!! What is Apple thinking? Helvetica is a font designed for PRINT not for 72dpi screen rendering. If it is un-molested (and if its called Helvetica it better not be) some of the uprights and the curved parts will not be 1 total pixel, so you end up with 2 grey pixels instead of 1 black pixel, especially at small sizes.

nforcer · Oct 15, 2003, 05:03 PM

Originally posted by Mimizuku no Lew:
They both look cack to me because I'm on a LCD

Can someone post a comparison between 10.2 and 10.3 using the LCD anti-aliasing settings?

I'm on an LCD as well. I've always found the "Standard - best for CRT" antialias setting to produce nicer looking, easier to read text than any other setting.