Font smoothing, font sizing, sub-pixel tuning, OS X vs Windows

Question

Level 3

554 points

Font smoothing, font sizing, sub-pixel tuning, OS X vs Windows

I have a query regarding font the font smoothing implementation in OS X.

Having just come from the Windows world (using ClearType) naturally comparisons will be made. I am trying to get fonts looking as readable as possible on my Mac. I have 19" LCD connected via DVI so would expect no issues there. It seems difficult to get fonts looking... crisp. I am starting from the basis of using font smoothing across the board as recommended. Turn off smoothing is set to font size 8 or smaller.

I note with respect to tuning of font smoothing (anti-aliasing) that there is not a 'fine tuning' tool like as made available on Windows...

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx

for the Mac. At least I can't find anything Googling. And I am not thinking of TinkerTool as that is not a fine tuner. The Windows ClearType tuner can really make a noticeable difference by adjusting the sub-pixel tuning. Is there any equivalent tool/configuration option available for Macs?

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.9)

Posted on Mar 18, 2007 11:04 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Mar 18, 2007 1:05 PM in response to FromOZ

Not sure what you mean by "Subpixel", possibly the transparency of the edge pixels. The Appearance Preference Panel has a dropdown menu at the bottom for setting font smoothing. You can also choose your monitor to font readability.

Reply

Answer 2

Mar 18, 2007 2:13 PM in response to Gnarlodious

I see no difference when changing font smoothing. I even changed the font size it's presumed to work with, still no change.

Maybe I'm looking at the wrong part of the screen?

Reply

Answer 3

FromOZ Author

Level 3

554 points

Mar 18, 2007 2:26 PM in response to Gnarlodious

Subpixel refers to using the red, green, blue (RGB) 'sub' pixels, which together form one visible (to the eye) pixel, to actually get a higher (apparent) resolution. This only works on LCD panels.

This website http://www.grc.com/ctwhat.htm has info on it.

It is a bit of a kludge solution - but it works - to go the next step after anti-aliasing -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-aliasing

- to improve the look of onscreen fonts

You can also read about sub-pixel rendering on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering.

The 'font smoothing' settings in OS X are using anti-aliasing and sub-pixel rendering. 'Standard' is just anti-aliasing, and the light, medium & strong settings use sub-pixel rendering to differing degrees.

Having said all that it still seems to me that the OS X sub-pixel rendering compared to what I see on a machine running optimised ClearType is not as clear (no flames pls).

Now on my previous Windows machine I could only achieve this by careful tuning using the tuning tool mentioned in my first post.

So - any way to fine tune sub-pixel rendering in OS X?

Reply

Answer 4

FromOZ Author

Level 3

554 points

Mar 18, 2007 3:10 PM in response to Alexander Santos

I see no difference when changing font smoothing. I
even changed the font size it's presumed to work
with, still no change.

Maybe I'm looking at the wrong part of the screen?

To see the changes after changing font smoothing in System Preferences in some cases you have to restart the application, in some cases I believe you have to log in again.

Reply

Answer 5

Mar 18, 2007 4:02 PM in response to FromOZ

Actually the default looks just fine.

Reply

Answer 6

Mar 18, 2007 5:21 PM in response to FromOZ

AFAIK, ClearType is patented by MS even though Wozniak did it a long time ago in Apple II. Not clear if the patent will ever hold up. But as you can imagine, this has to be done in the very low level OS font rendering code. Add to this that some LCDs have the RGB runing along the x-axis and some run along the Y-axis that will totally screw up subpixel rendering. Not to mention some displays that allow the user to rotate by 90 degrees!!!

Subpixel rendering is a trick used when resolution of displays are challenged and small font readability is crucial. Today, the only place this makes sense is on cell phones when you are trying to render small type like a webpage. (Bitstream's Thunderhawk is a good example of subpixel rendering on cell phones.) On desktop displays today at XGA or greater resolution, the tradeoff in enhancing a bit in resolution is outweighed by the added computation cycles needed to filter the entire display so the eye sees "grey" on average rather than red or green or blue.

You must have extremely good vision to be able to tell the enhacement made by ClearType on XGA or better displays. I wish my eyesight is as good as yours.

Charles

Reply

Answer 7

FromOZ Author

Level 3

554 points

Mar 19, 2007 12:31 PM in response to Charles Ying2

You must have extremely good vision to be able to
tell the enhacement made by ClearType on XGA or
better displays. I wish my eyesight is as good as
yours.

Well by your own admission you must be half blind, and I think you must be if you can't see the difference between - and let's be precise about this - no anti-aliasing vs. anti-aliasing +- sub-pixel rendering. Whether on Windows and/or OS X. There is.

Subpixel rendering is a trick used when resolution of
displays are challenged and small font readability is
crucial.
Today, the only place this makes sense is on
cell phones when you are trying to render small type
like a webpage.

I believe the website links I posted show that I have a reasonable grasp of what sub-pixel rendering is, that was not the purpose of my question. Also, actually, you are incorrect when you state that sub-pixel rendering is relevant/necessary only for small fonts. The exact opposite is true - usually sub-pixel rendering (including in OS X) is turned off for small fonts because it tends to make them more unreadable.

On desktop displays today at XGA or greater resolution,
the tradeoff in enhancing a bit in resolution is
outweighed by the added computation cycles needed to
filter the entire display so the eye sees "grey" on
average rather than red or green or blue.

Well you better rush and tell Apple to rip it out of OS X... because they seem to disagree with you as both anti-aliasing and sub-pixel rendering are included, and encouraged to be used, in OS X!

I'm sorry, but your statements are just plainly wrong and unconsidered.

Back to my - still unanswered, factual and valid question. The implementation of anti-aliasing + sub-pixel rendering in OS X does not appear, and I am stating this unbiasedly, to be as good as it could be (as I have seen in Windows). BTW this is not solely my finding as a number of very experienced Mac users have pointed out:

Here...
http://www.michelf.com/weblog/2006/subpixel-antialiasing-achilles-heel/
and here...
http://www.betalogue.com/2006/01/24/pages-20-does-not-fix-font-smoothing-issue/
and here...
http://mjtsai.com/blog/2006/02/04/font-smoothing-in-pages/

I gather from the replies I have received thus far, and from research on the Internet, that there is currently no way - going into Unix config files or by some utility - to address this issue. Hopefully it will be improved in a later version of OS X.

BTW - this does not stop me loving my new Mac!

Reply