On 6/18/02 3:15 PM, "Jan Martel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On 6/18/02 12:12 PM, "Christian M. M. Brady" wrote: > >> On 6/18/02 2:03 PM, "Paul Berkowitz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> >>> Has anyone noticed that, so far, all the people who don't like Quartz >>> smoothing are on TiBooks or iBooks? >>> >>> I don't think this is a coincidence. >> >> Well I like it on my TiBook, but maybe I am just weird. ;-) I have heard >> others say that they find text smoothing much more important for them on LCD >> screens than on CRTs, but obviously not everyone agrees. > > I like it also, and I like it even more when I get tired of reading small > print and make the font sizes larger. So maybe it's a font size issue? Font smoothing seems to work best when it has a lot of pixels to work with, relative to the size of the characters in the text. This is fairly intuitive when you think about how it works. The antialiasing algorithms draw interpolated (intermediate tone) pixels on the edges to fool your eyes into seeing smooth curves. So if the characters are small, this does make them look blurry, possibly harder to read than with smoothing disabled. Large characters look better. I think TiBooks and iBooks have higher pixel densities than typical desktop displays. A given font size (in points) usually looks smaller than it does on a desktop monitor. So if you use 9, 10, or 12 point fonts on these laptops, you are looking at pretty small text. Turn on smoothing and it could get even harder to read. I disagree with the notion that people with less-than-perfect vision will prefer smoothed type. These people (including moi) need all the clarity they can get. If you use an Apple laptop you should consider setting your apps to use slightly larger font sizes (in points) than the defaults, which are usually chosen for desktop monitors. The higher pixel density on the laptops can be an advantage. Compared to a desktop monitor, the laptop will be displaying a larger font size (in points) but at the same physical size (in inches), and the laptop will be drawing the characters with more pixels, so smoothing should work better. Right now, font smoothing is not an obvious advantage for small font sizes. Some folks will prefer to turn it off. Someday, when we are all using monitors with 200 to 300 pixels per inch, there will be little or no reason to turn it off. -- Julian Vrieslander <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
