Shared item
1 shares
Photoshop: Which Anti-Alias Setting is Best?
via Tutorial Blog by chriscoyier on April 23, 2008
Without going into too much gory detail, anti-aliasing is the term used to describe how the edges of shapes get rendered with pixels. With anti-aliasing turned off, pixels are either just “on” or “off” and you see jagged edges. As we will see later, in some scenarios turning off anti-aliasing is the best option. With anti-aliasing on, the edges of shapes have semi-transparent pixels applied to give a smoother appearance.
But as you can see in Photoshop, anti-aliasing isn’t just “on” or “off”, you have options:
Strong, Crisp, Smooth….. But which one is best?
And the answer is…
The answer, of course, depends. Sorry if I got your hopes up and you were expecting a simple answer. The very best solution here, is to try everything and see what looks best.
If you are working with very large type, the different settings matter much less. With a block of small text, you are able to see how dramatically the different types of anti-aliasing matter.
QUICK TIP: If you are rotating text within Photoshop (something Photoshop notoriously sucks at), the “Crisp” setting is known to to have magical fixing powers for this. The problem is that the baseline is often disrupted after you rotate and some letters can sometimes appear to be above it while others below. It’s not a 100% fix, but if this ever happens to you, definitely try setting the anti-aliasing to “crisp” to see if it fixes it for you.
Different rules, different looks…
Each of the different anti-aliasing settings uses a different set of rules to determine just how it is going to apply the semi-transparent pixels around the edges of shapes. Different rules, different looks. Photoshop has named these different looks in an effort to describe the effect they have: Sharp, Crisp, Strong, and Smooth. Take a look at the subtle differences:
The differences are obvious while zoomed in, but those differences still have a substantial effect at regular size:
The important point here is to be aware of these different settings, and if you are unhappy with the way your text is looking, to play with the different choices.
With very small text…
The smaller you get with text, the pickier you need to be with your anti-aliasing. In fact, at very small text sizes, turning it off can actually be your best solution. Take a look at some small type which is suffocating in it’s own anti-aliasing:
Turning it off, in this case, makes this type much more readable:
So how about it folks? Do you have any tips or comments regarding anti-aliasing?
Shared by: