Blurry letters?

The Memory Hole

The Memory Hole

Ingsoc
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.
 
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.
 
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!
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
The fonts in Tiger look better than on Panther. I think they've tweaked the anti-aliasing algorithms. Fonts look smooth and very readable.
 
Viro said:
The fonts in Tiger look better than on Panther. I think they've tweaked the anti-aliasing algorithms. Fonts look smooth and very readable.
Click to expand...

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
 
It's very similar to Windows XP's ClearType font smoothing.

Personally I hated it, so I changed it back to Standard in the Appearance preference pane.
 
This is one thing where I think some people like 10.4, other people like 10.3 more. Not much the user can do (oh, I remember: petitions, class action suits, but please...), really. I personally think font smoothing has simply improved over the years. Nothing to fix here...
 
I've always had problems with the blurry text that comes as standard with OSX. I do think Windows is easier to read (without cleartype enabled) with the smaller fonts that OSX likes to smooth (I'm not saying that Windows looks better, it's just easier to read in some circumstances). Anyway, after much fiddling I have settled on the following settings that work for me is Safari (the main culprit) and Finder:

(You've probably done the first one but I'll put it in as it may help others)
System preferences > Appearance: "Font smoothing: style Standard - best for CRT" and set "Turn of text smoothing for font sizes 12 and smaller".

In Safari > Preferences > Appearance: "Standard font: Times 15" and "Fixed-width font: Courier 12".

I tend to use 'apple +' to make the text bigger on some sites that text now appears too small on.

I hope this helps.
 
gooseman said:
tend to use 'apple +' to make the text bigger on some sites that text now appears too small on.
Click to expand...
In case you don't know, you can set a minimum font size for use in the Advanced tab of Safari's preferences. I have mine set to 12, so all text is nice and legible.
 
Simple solution people...

Goto system preferences > appearance
Set the 'font smoothing style' to Standard - Best for CRT

Then, this is slighly odd but it sorted it for me....
Goto system preferences > International
and remove all the languages you don't use just leaving the only language you primarily use.

Log out and then back in again...all sorted...odd solution I know but it seems to have sorted it for me ;)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top