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Screen fonts - fuzzy?
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egg
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Apr 25, 2005, 09:02 AM
 
Hi,

so I've a new clean install of Tiger, and have a little problem with fonts. Not sure if the issue if with the OS, my settings, or as designed.

BWT im using a powerbook 12".

The issue is that my fonts are a bit fuzzy. When I look at slashdot for example, the headings seem quite Bold and Fuzzy... more so than normal. I've messed with the display preferences but they don't seem to help.

Anyone else having this issue?

ps. im a mac noob, so I may be missing something obvious here...

Cheers,
     
eggman
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Apr 25, 2005, 09:09 AM
 
Check out "Font Smoothing Style" in your Appearences preferences pane.
     
egg  (op)
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Apr 25, 2005, 09:12 AM
 
I did... but changing between strong, medium, auto etc don't seem to do much. Maybe it's my eyes!! :-) What would be the best choice for a 12" powerbook?

Actually, can you explain what these settings are DOING?! :-)
     
TETENAL
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Apr 25, 2005, 09:19 AM
 
Originally Posted by egg
I did... but changing between strong, medium, auto etc don't seem to do much.
You need to log out before the change takes effect (at least restart an application before it picks up the change). The best choice for a PowerBook is "Medium - Ideal for Flat Panel". Some people see color fringing when using the "for Flat Panel" settings (aka sub-pixel-antialiasing). If you do and don't like it you would have to pick "Standard - best for CRT". This setting does regular antialiasing.
     
egg  (op)
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Apr 25, 2005, 09:32 AM
 
ah! as most changes seem to work in real-time, I was expecting the same there :-o

thnx!
     
Millennium
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Apr 25, 2005, 09:34 AM
 
These settings deal with how much Apple antialiases (that is, slightly blurs the edges of) onscreen text. This technique is common in GUI environments nowadays, and in general it makes text look smoother. The settings control how much to blur the edges. Normally it's very slight no matter what the setting is, and personally I have trouble telling the difference between any of the settings. However, if you have trouble reading the text then you should definitely lower the setting as much as you can. Also, as a question: what browser are you using, and have you changed its font settings? Some fonts look better antialiased than others, and this could play a role in your troubles.

The Medium setting -the one recommended for CRTs- doesn't actually use antialiasing, though. Instead, it uses sub-pixel smoothing, not unlike Microsoft's ClearType (though the concept goes all the way back to the Apple II machines, which predate both Mac and Windows). This said, Apple's methods as implemented in Panther could use some work. I don't know if Tiger is any better about it, because I haven't tested it yet.
You are in Soviet Russia. It is dark. Grue is likely to be eaten by YOU!
     
eggman
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Apr 25, 2005, 09:36 AM
 
"Medium" is supposed to be best for any flat panel display.

"Auto" is new to Tiger and is supposed to automatically select the best result for your kind of display, based on your current hardware.

As for what the settings actually do... font smoothing is trying to compensate for the fact that there is a disparity between the ideal geometry of character shapes and the finite pixel resolution of your display. Since some of the curves of a character often only partially intersect pixels on the display, rather than having jagged text (like in the old days of bit-mapped character fonts) where the pixels of a character were fully opaque (either the pixel was "there" or not), modern OS's draw characters more blurry... so if the curve of an "O" partially intersects a pixel, it is drawn semi-transparently, based on how fully it covers that pixel.

A few years ago, we had perhaps 256 colors or even 16 on our computer displays... so there weren't enough shades of any given color to blend different font colors over different background colors with varying transparancy - so font smoothing on the desktop is still relatively new.

Anyways, these techniques are approximations - and sometimes it makes text look too fuzzy... or too boxy - so different kinds of filtering can be used to either exaggerate or attenuate the effect of partial pixel coverage. Hence the different font smoothing settings.

That's probably a whole lot more than you wanted to know, right?

It may just be a matter of you getting used to font-smoothing on the Mac if you didn't have similar technology on your previous computer. Personally, I wanted anti-aliased fonts on my computer years before they actually arrived... so I'm appreciative of the effect. Other folks hate it... and would prefer the old-style jagged, but "sharp" characters of the past.
     
egg  (op)
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Apr 25, 2005, 09:38 AM
 
thanks for the feedback, I'll have another play on the mac tonight and try this stuff out. (btw, i use safari).
     
egg  (op)
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Apr 25, 2005, 12:18 PM
 
OK, i had a test... as you say, a restart of safari is needed to see the changes. Standard (off?) seems to look best to me... medium and strong just look very fuzzy to my eyes! :-)

cheers
     
lookmark
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Apr 25, 2005, 12:29 PM
 
Originally Posted by egg
ah! as most changes seem to work in real-time, I was expecting the same there :-o

thnx!
Yeah, this is needlessly confusing -- there should be a little note to that effect in the preference pane.

I like Standard on my Powerbook as well -- bold and white-on-black type w/ "Best for Flat-Panel" look just incredibly fuzzy -- I don't get why it would be preferred.
( Last edited by lookmark; Apr 25, 2005 at 12:52 PM. )
     
ul1984
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Apr 25, 2005, 12:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by egg
OK, i had a test... as you say, a restart of safari is needed to see the changes. Standard (off?) seems to look best to me... medium and strong just look very fuzzy to my eyes! :-)

cheers
i agree standard looks much better, even on LCDs, and this was the standard setting in Panther.

however apple changed the standard setting to Auto in Tiger, which will make it pick "Medium - Best for flat panel" on LCDs i think, so out of the box the text will look uglier on Tiger

and this brings another problem(should make a diff thread for this maybe), the login window, "Force Quit", and "About This Mac" windows still uses the Auto setting, even if you change it to Standard in Appearance. this is freaking me out, looks just horrible. (these three windows are all powered by the same process "loginwindow", so i suppose i have to change the font smoothing to Standard on the root user, so its probably not too hard to fix, but havent had time yet)
     
lookmark
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Apr 25, 2005, 12:57 PM
 
Originally Posted by ul1984
i agree standard looks much better, even on LCDs, and this was the standard setting in Panther.

however apple changed the standard setting to Auto in Tiger, which will make it pick "Medium - Best for flat panel" on LCDs i think, so out of the box the text will look uglier on Tiger
This really baffles me. (1) Why do bold and inverse text look so poor with the supposedly LCD-friendly sub-pixel smoothing, and (2) why do some people -- i.e. Steve Jobs -- not seem to mind it?

I guess this stuff gets pretty subjective, but I find bold text in particular (with "Light/Medium/Strong") just plain awful-looking... it's a bit embarrassing that it's now the default setting for Tiger, esp. being that many new Apple computers (save the eMac) will be hooked to flat-panel displays.

( Last edited by lookmark; Apr 25, 2005 at 01:08 PM. )
     
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May 9, 2005, 10:07 PM
 
hi

i followed the directions but my fonts in safari are still aliased. i can't have this. i need them aliased or i will explode.

i checked safari pres and nothing in there about this...

help my mac brethren
     
MartiNZ
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May 9, 2005, 11:17 PM
 
Wow, I never knew people disliked the antialiasing so much. I was so pleased that they added the automatic setting in Tiger, as whenever I see someone else with a PowerBook or iBook, it's obvious that they're running in standard mode and it's just ugly - and the same goes for demo machines. So I'm basically at the opposite end of the scale from most of you in here! News to me.
     
Apple Pro Underwear
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May 9, 2005, 11:29 PM
 
firefox seems to be nice and aliased and my finder too...

WTF!


it looks like i'm going to have to drop safari. stupid apple...
     
TETENAL
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May 9, 2005, 11:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by Apple Pro Underwear
firefox seems to be nice and aliased and my finder too...
It seems like you have no clue what you're talking about.
     
tooki
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May 10, 2005, 01:51 AM
 
Originally Posted by Millennium
The Medium setting -the one recommended for CRTs- doesn't actually use antialiasing, though...
Uhh, I think you meant to say the one recommended for flat panels. Subpixel rendering is bad for CRT use.

tooki
     
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May 10, 2005, 07:10 AM
 
Originally Posted by TETENAL
It seems like you have no clue what you're talking about.

firefox = no font smoothing

safari = font smoothed

finder = no or minimal font smoothing



i was celebrating my new mac arrival with some beers last night so typing correctly/formulating sentences was out the window
     
eggman
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May 10, 2005, 10:24 AM
 
Gee, I'm looking at smooth fonts in Firefox right now.
     
mAxximo
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May 10, 2005, 10:53 AM
 
This has been one of my main issues with OS X since the beginning. Forcing font blurring on users without giving us the option of setting sharp, aliased screen fonts like it used to be on the Mac is...aggravating. I want antialiased fonts when I'm working in Illustrator, not in the interface or the browser.

The situation got slightly better in Tiger but still not nearly as good as it should be.

(Not surprisingly, Terminal uses highly readable sharp fonts. Subtext: Font Blurring is for Chumps, i.e. the rest of us).
     
eggman
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May 10, 2005, 11:39 AM
 
Originally Posted by mAxximo
This has been one of my main issues with OS X since the beginning. Forcing font blurring on users without giving us the option of setting sharp, aliased screen fonts like it used to be on the Mac is...aggravating. I want antialiased fonts when I'm working in Illustrator, not in the interface or the browser.

The situation got slightly better in Tiger but still not nearly as good as it should be.

(Not surprisingly, Terminal uses highly readable sharp fonts. Subtext: Font Blurring is for Chumps, i.e. the rest of us).
There are a number of problems inherent in what you call "sharp" and what I call "jaggy" fonts, not least of which is that it radically complicates font management because you need to have bitmapped 'screen' fonts of varying resolution that only approximate what you'll get when you output the vector versions for decent quality prints. Not only that, but smoothed fonts will be able to more accurately reflect the kerning and leading you'll have in printed output, demonstrating accurate line lengths, etc. That's not just useful in Illustrator - that's useful in Word.

Having jaggy screen fonts at just a few specified pixel resolutions... which were used in conjunction with precise, well kerned vector fonts for output was always something of a hack, albeit a necessary one given the limited capabilities of the display hardware of the past.

I don't think the subtext of the fact that you have monospaced bitmapped fonts in the terminal is that Font Blurring is for Chumps... I think the implication is that the terminal represents an atavistic interface that depends on monospaced fonts.
     
Don Pickett
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May 10, 2005, 12:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by mAxximo
This has been one of my main issues with OS X since the beginning. Forcing font blurring on users without giving us the option of setting sharp, aliased screen fonts like it used to be on the Mac is...aggravating. I want antialiased fonts when I'm working in Illustrator, not in the interface or the browser.
Funny � I want the exact opposite. I turn off all anti-aliasing in Illustrator because it makes it harder for me to position items exactly. In the Finder I don't want to see a jaggy anywhere.
     
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May 10, 2005, 11:06 PM
 
firefox is working out nicely for me. i like the way the bookmarks system works over safari anyway, so it gave me a reason to stick to firefox.

thanks guys.
     
TETENAL
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May 10, 2005, 11:19 PM
 
Originally Posted by Apple Pro Underwear
firefox = no font smoothing
safari = font smoothed
finder = no or minimal font smoothing
This just proves you have no clue. All three of these do font smoothing, and they are all doing the Quartz style font smoothing (with the exception of some bitmap fonts in Firefox not smoothed under certain conditions).

Whatever difference you see in these three applications it's not font smoothing.
     
   
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