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Fonts are crisp only at 100%


horizon981

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I may be only imagining this, but I'm sure my Photoshop used to be pretty capable at rendering font until yesterday. Today, I find that font looks smooth only at 100% zoom level, and becomes badly jaggy even at 110% zoom-level. I have the "sharp" anti-aliasing method on, and have tried deleting the preferences file.

In a PSD, there normally are different fonts in different sizes, but as far as I remember, zooming in and out never used to screw up the fonts as badly as it is doing now.

In fact, when I export these files to PNGs and view them in Picasa even at 200%, there is no problem.

I remember it was surely not this way before.

Any help is greatly appreciated!
 

Poxt

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Try the same font at a larger size 300% rasterize> convert to smart object> and then scale it down and let me know if its still jagged?
My fonts have always looked jagged on PS because pixels, that why I import Vector text from AI.
 

horizon981

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Well, here's what I did:

1. Opened a new file with 1024x768
2. Selected Georgia size 60
3. Anti-aliasing is set to "sharp"
4. Zoom level is 75%

The attached screenshot shows how jagged the font is. Although I'm a novice, I'm getting a feeling this is an overnight development. Why does it show fonts of any size crisp only at 100% zoom? Is this normal? If yes, funny I never noticed it before even though I work extensively with different fonts.

Finally, I did convert this to smart object, but since it was initially jagged, it remains jagged after zooming out. I then set the zoom to 100%, and the font became butter-smooth, then converted to smart object, and on zooming out it's again getting jagged. :cry:
 

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  • damn-font.png
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dv8_fx

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Horizon.... it's in the way PS displays fonts. At normal view, it appears smooth but when zoomed in, the jaggedness will show.

Coverting the font to a smart object will also do that. In a way, PS displays the the font as a psedo vector thus the jagginess.
 

Hoogle

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You could change your preferences Edit > preferences> rulers and measurement and where it says type change it from point size to pixel size that way the font is displayed per pixel so tends to be a lot cleaner looking. However you have to remember a point size of 18 could be a pixel size of 100 or so they are a lot smaller and depends greatly on the resolution of your document.
 

horizon981

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Well, thanks. I know I sound like a madman here, but I'm really surprised I didn't notice this before. I made a couple of web layouts before this, and given how sensitive I am to fonts (well, who isn't!), I should have noticed it earlier somehow. The trouble is the font appears broken both when I zoom in and zoom out. I don't think it used to happen when I zoomed out, but suddenly it is.
Something has gone wrong somewhere, either with Photoshop or with my mind. :(
 

horizon981

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Hoogle: Sorry changing the units didn't change anything for me. Should the font look bad even at 90%? I don't remember it being so.
 

horizon981

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Update: I noticed something very funny. The text looks great only at 25%, 50%, and 100% zoom levels. Anything other than this, and it's broken beyond hope. I hope this offers some clue. Thanks for all the help so far!
 

Hoogle

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Photoshop does not do accurate zooms to process it quicker they actually put some code into it where it will zoom at original quality at some interim points and sorts of guess the 1s inbetween. There is some trick to to get it more accurate but for the likes of me I cant remember where I saw it I am thinking it was on 1 of the lynda.com typography tutorials
 

Paul

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The largest size you need is a 100% of the original size.

Another thing is when working in photoshop make sure you tried all the different anti-aliasing modes of the text - SHARP/SMOOTH/CRISP ETC. I usually use smooth and it works. Depending on the font sometimes crisp is the better choice.
Make sure your dpi is always set to 72. If you try 300 for example it will look very bad on your monitor but on a high quality print it'll be perfect. And if you use a 300dpi for a flash it automatically resizes it to 72 which is a 4 times reduction in size and its kind of normal to loose quality.

Another thing is to use vector outlines for the type (convert to shape in Photoshop). It should always be perfect no matter how you resize it.
 

horizon981

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Paul: I typed something at 100% zoom level, converted to shapes, and am viewing it at 80% now and it still looks as bad as ever (please see attachment). :(
 

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horizon981

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My problem is that seeing this jagged font on Photoshop is annoying. Using it for something comes later. Of course when I save it as a file, things work like a charm. I fail to understand why this is happening. I mean, even MS Word renders fonts correctly. It's not only the fonts, even the images I included in my PSD look jagged at anything other than 100%, 50% and 25%.
 

Hoogle

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I am not getting that problem the only difference is I am using sharp setting rather than smooth but everything else looks the same unless you have 1 of the scripts enabled
28.72 pixels per inch
Capture.PNG

300 px per inch
cap 2.PNG

500 px per inch resolution for document by the way.

500.PNG

My solutions would be you either have a video card that needs updating or it is starting to fail

create a new layer above your text layer fillit with black right click it and say create clipping mask

Hold down control and click your text layer icon The white square with a T in it go to select> modify feather 1 or 2 pixels and then select the paint bucket tool and fill in the letters individually or use a largehard brush and paint over it in black.
 

Hoogle

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Ok there may be some jaggedness but that is only from the screen shot and the save method
 

Furio

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It's not only the fonts, even the images I included in my PSD look jagged at anything other than 100%, 50% and 25%.
It's an OpenGL issue as far as I can tell, since that effects both fonts and images. Either yours is turned off in your settings or your have some driver issue. Maybe you updated your video driver recently? If OpenGL was turned off, make sure you restart Photoshop after turning it on. Try resetting your Photoshop preference file if nothing else works and make sure OpenGL is turned on after you reset this file and again...if it was turned off, make sure you restart after turning it on.

All Photoshop versions before CS4 didn't use OpenGL, so we would only have good quality at 100%, using any other zoom level would result in exactly what you're seeing right now.
 
Last edited:

Hoogle

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I have just gone through every text effecting issue every open gl setting put performance value to 96 the lowest and put it up to 4000 the maximum which is what I run on ram wise still no difference. played with the anti alias settings no difference. The only thing I can say is that your document image resolution is set to an uncompatable mode to the graphics your using so set it up as 72 dpi 300 dpi or anything that seems to work. other than that you could try resetting your preference file by closing photoshop go to your start menu and launch photoshop immediately pressing control + shift +alt .

failing that

Right click on your desktop and put your image resolution up to the max for your screen.

Failing that reinstall photoshop.

Failing that buy a new graphics card with better gl features and a high end gui system you shouldnt need more than 1 gig in graphics memory for photoshop.

If it is anything else then I have no idea sorry.
 

Furio

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Hoogle, turn off OpenGL drawing, restart and you should get exactly what he's seeing. Mind you....this is with a Windows version of CS5. Check my previous post.
 

horizon981

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I have re-installed Photoshop and the problem is the same. Even shapes drawn are appearing jaggy except at 100%, 50% and 25%. I have earlier files I was working on about a week ago and everything was fine. Suddenly, something has gone wrong somewhere. And no, I didn't update my video driver. I'm using Windows 7 on a laptop, so can't upgrade the video card. Also, it says hardware acceleration is not supported and so OpenGL is turned off, I guess.

Funniest thing is, it was all right a week ago. Otherwise, I would not have noticed this difference and posted here. :(
 

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