Blurry letters?

**The Memory Hole** · May 3rd, 2005, 08:50 PM

Hello.
I am hopefully going to make sense when I describe my following "problem". Has anyone else noticed that the letters in Tiger look a little bold? Or a little blurry (like it has really high font smoothing)? I tried lowering the amount of font smoothing in the "Appearance" pane of the system preferences... but that didn't do anything. Any ideas on how to fix this (if it is something I can fix anyway). I think it may have something to do with the "Displays" pane of the System Preferences... but I don't know. Just for future reference, I am using a 20 inch Apple Studio Display. My other computer specs are in my signature.

It kinda bothers me because it causes discomfort reading... makes me want to keep rubbing my eyes. Is anyone else noticing this, or am I going insane/nitpicking?

Here is a pic of what I am describing (just in case it isn't happening to anyone else...). It is especially noticeable to me where the white text is on the blue background.
Example

Thank you. Oh, and if this has been brought up before, I'm sorry... I tried searching, but I didn't really know what to search for.

**riccbhard** · May 3rd, 2005, 09:42 PM

This is a problem in Tiger with font smoothing. Turn it off (instead of down) from system prefrences > appearance and see what happenes. (Note: it may not be under appearance. I dont have Tiger yet so I dont know. It was under that in Panther.)

EDIT: Didnt read your post fully. I just realized you know where the font smoothing setting is. I would suggest turning it off compleatly. You may need to log out > then back in to show changes.

**The Memory Hole** · May 3rd, 2005, 10:20 PM

It appears that I am unable to just turn it off... the lowest it can go is a setting called "Light". I guess I can kind of turn it off, but only for font sizes 12 and under. Hmm... thanks for you help anyway!

**HomunQlus** · May 4th, 2005, 01:48 AM

I have noticed that too. However, on my PB it looks better than on Panther, as well as on my iMac G5. For me, the fonts seem to appear more clean and better readable.

**Mikuro** · May 4th, 2005, 02:01 AM

When you change the Font Smoothing setting, it will NOT affect currently-loaded programs. You need to quit+reload an application to see the change. So you'll probably want to reboot after changing it to ensure that the change becomes system-wide.

It always behaved this way, even under Panther, but there's never been any kind of alert to inform the user of this decidedly un-intuitive behavior. *sigh* Bad Apple! (I seem to be saying that a lot since the release of Tiger. Not a good sign.)

Hope this helps.

**fryke** · May 4th, 2005, 02:56 AM

Don't reboot. Just logout and login. And: Those white on blue in the screenshot ARE bold. Not too blurry. That's just fine antialiasing. Looks gorgeous on my PB.

**Viro** · May 4th, 2005, 04:27 AM

The fonts in Tiger look better than on Panther. I think they've tweaked the anti-aliasing algorithms. Fonts look smooth and very readable.

**jarzuz** · May 29th, 2005, 06:42 AM

Originally Posted by Viro

The fonts in Tiger look better than on Panther. I think they've tweaked the anti-aliasing algorithms. Fonts look smooth and very readable.

I had the same problem when I upgraded to Tiger. This is a solution:
you have to take font Lucida Grande from Panther system (version of font: 4.1d9) and repleace your Tiger's Lucida Gradne (version 5.0d8e1) in system/library/font folder (administator's password will be required). Then reboot.

Jerry