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Smoothing edges of text


Arse

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I'm making some text, selecting the text with the magic wand, and applying a gradient to the text. The problem is, the text comes out looking jagged. I know about the feather and alias plugins, but they don't seem to work well for me, as they just blur the image. I've fiddled with the tolerance on the magic wand, and it doesn't fix the problem. It seems to deal with straight letters easily. Curved letters are a big problem, it appears.

 

KcFZ8Wv.png

 

Antialiasing is on. What can I do to make it come out smoother?

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1. Put your text on it's own layer.  ALWAYS put your text on it's own layer ;)

 

2. Apply the gradient to actual text on the text layer.

 

3. Use Feather or AA's Assistant to soften the edges if required.

 

yhsjjie-1060.png

 

4. Trick for the future:  Work at 2x the final size you require & save the image as a *.PDN to preserve the layer structure.  Then resize by 50% & Save As... a PNG or JPG or whatever.

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Yeah, the text is on its own layer, and I've used the 2x size thing, but the result is the same cause the magic wand. Feather and AA's assistant isn't really helping either. Every plugin I've tried adds a very noticeable blur.

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Try lowering the Tolerance of the Magic Wand down to about 8%.

Select outside the text and invert the selection with Ctrl + I.  Then apply your gradient.

 

Edit:  Here's the critical part of the History of the image I posted above.

 

yhsjjie-2056.png

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Check your anti-aliasing.  I know you said it was on, but it really looks like it wasn't when you typed that text.

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Magic Wand does not support anti-aliasing or "feathering." It is strictly an aliased or "pixelated" selection tool. Any pixel it picks up is either fully selected or not.

 

There just wasn't a good way to create selection geometry that properly simulated feathering in a way that I could make sense of in the time I allocated to working on the development of this tool.

 

(Selections are geometric in nature. They do not have per-pixel opacity; that information is inferred by how much the selection geometry overlaps any given pixel. This will change when the selection is rotated, resized, or otherwise transformed in some way.)

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I set the tolerance to 8%, followed your history and method exactly (using inverted selection), and it turned out like this.

 

o0x7n7C.png

 

Anti-aliasing was definitely on

qfQFyE8.png

 

Magic Wand does not support anti-aliasing or "feathering." It is strictly an aliased or "pixelated" selection tool. Any pixel it picks up is either fully selected or not.

 

There just wasn't a good way to create selection geometry that properly simulated feathering in a way that I could make sense of in the time I allocated to working on the development of this tool.

 

(Selections are geometric in nature. They do not have per-pixel opacity; that information is inferred by how much the selection geometry overlaps any given pixel. This will change when the selection is rotated, resized, or otherwise transformed in some way.)

 

How can I smoothen the edges, then? It seems like others are having a much easier time, and I think they're all using the Magic Wand.

Edited by Arse
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What size canvas (image) is that?

Sorry to butt in about things I barely understand myself - but it looks like a tiny canvas or you're zoomed in a long way?. The anti-aliasing looks correct - just not enough pixels? - what happens if you turn on the pixel grid?

 

Try opening a new image and make sure it is atleast 800 by 600 - I'm thinking you may have been working on a small image before?

But - I could be talking rubbish! ;)
 

 

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What size canvas (image) is that?

Sorry to butt in about things I barely understand myself - but it looks like a tiny canvas or you're zoomed in a long way?. The anti-aliasing looks correct - just not enough pixels? - what happens if you turn on the pixel grid?

 

Try opening a new image and make sure it is atleast 800 by 600 - I'm thinking you may have been working on a small image before?

But - I could be talking rubbish! ;)

 

Sorry for the late reply. The canvas was about 330 by 100. I've tried making the image huge and resizing it, but the problem is Magic Wand causes all the jaggedness. The same thing ends up happening.

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Try running AA's Assistant twice or even three times.

What font are you using for the text?

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You could always use median. or a combination of gaussian blur, median, and make opaque.

TEST_zps11de4fec.png

Edited by Riddley
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Just keep on keeping on. ✌

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I've always found that the Alpha mask plugin was the best way to get smooth text. Just type the text in black, copy the layer to the clip board, and run the plugin on the layer with the gradient. Make sure the "Invert Mask" button is checked. The post says the plugin compilation is incompatible with 4.0, but I just tested and it works just fine.

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Try running AA's Assistant twice or even three times.

What font are you using for the text?

The blur really kills the look of the text. I'm using Steelfish.

 

You could always use median. or a combination of gaussian blur, median, and make opaque.

TEST_zps11de4fec.png

I've tried what you said, fiddled with it a bit, and it's really blurry.

 

I've always found that the Alpha mask plugin was the best way to get smooth text. Just type the text in black, copy the layer to the clip board, and run the plugin on the layer with the gradient. Make sure the "Invert Mask" button is checked. The post says the plugin compilation is incompatible with 4.0, but I just tested and it works just fine.

Ergh, that didn't work either.

 

Thanks for all of your help, guys, but this isn't working out. Moving on to another program  :(

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Awwwww come on @Arse - don't give up on PDN just yet.
 
Here is my result ..... done on canvas 800 x 600 and no anti-alising or anything fancy.  Just straight layes and font and good old AA's Assistant.
 
USDmwGR.png
 
 
I typed the text on a new layer, in the darker blue color of the two.

Then I magic-wanded the insides of the text, made a new layer and then used the Gradient and after that, used AA's Assistant at default.

Merged the two text layers and flattened. 
 
Here are the steps:

http://i.imgur.com/mA1CJAv.png

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Arse, if you thought using median was blurry, then why was my result completely blur-free and crisp?

Check out my gallery/archive: here

 

Just keep on keeping on. ✌

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