Font bug

[ionone]

i have a bug with 2 specific fonts from the same manufacturer : when i use bold font, the bottom of the text is erased.

this problem vanishes when i turn off the anti-alias.

This problem happens only with Paint.NET.

this is the only fonts where i have this problem.

could anybody knows what is wrong and how i could change this because i really need to be able to use these fonts with bold..

thanks a lot.

[Sozo]

Well, I don't know what's wrong, but to work around it you could try typing the font normally, then using the outline plugin to sort of emulate making it bold. Just use soft settings and a small radius.

[david.atwell]

Is that happening when you're typing in the font, or just when you see it in the drop-down menu?

Moved to Troubleshooting

[ionone]

Is that happening when you're typing in the font, or just when you see it in the drop-down menu?

Moved to Troubleshooting

it happens on the text i wrote, not on the menu.

[ionone]

ok i installed the 3.5 beta version and everything works now, i think it has been fixed in this release.

thanks for support everybody

[ionone]

ok i installed the 3.5 beta version and everything works now, i think it has been fixed in this release.

thanks for support everybody

oops spoke too fast. now the text seems different : it's like it's not smoothed anymore (also there was a menu like that which disappeared...i mean there was Antialias + Smoothing menus and now there is only Antialias)

[ionone]

here is what i have now (on top is v3.3, under is v3.5b)

[Rick Brewster]

What you're seeing is the difference between GDI+ and GDI. The former has been removed for reasons of reliability and performance. On Windows 7, Paint.NET will use DirectWrite which has much better text rendering.

[alexo]

What you're seeing is the difference between GDI+ and GDI. The former has been removed for reasons of reliability and performance. On Windows 7, Paint.NET will use DirectWrite which has much better text rendering.

Rick, a lot of people run Paint.NET on XP and frankly, the fonts on 3.5beta look terrible in all but the largest of sizes. Performance may have increased but the image quality suffered greatly.

[Rick Brewster]

Yes, that's true (that a lot of people use XP). However, GDI+ isn't an option at all. It crashes a lot, which is unacceptable. Same with WPF's font stack. I spent a ton of time rewriting the font management and text rendering in 3.5. Beleive me when I say I did a thorough evaluation of the situation from all perspectives: rendering quality, correctness, reliability, performance, and demographics of the user base. XP users (a shrinking percentage btw) get stable and correct rendering now. Vista and Win7 users also get great rendering quality.

[alexo]

What I noticed, Rick, is that the font antialiasing of 3.5b3 seems much more aggressive than that of 3.36.

It is mostly noticeable with thinner fonts in small to medium sizes. The effect is to make it seem that the strokes have "holes" in them.

That raises the question, how to you anti-alias fonts in PDN? Do you use CreateFontIndirect() with the lfQuality field of the LOGFONT set to ANTIALIASED_QUALITY (4)?

In that case, CLEARTYPE_QUALITY (5) or CLEARTYPE_NATURAL_QUALITY (6) may give different results. Could you make it user-configurable?

Thanks,

Alex.

[ionone]

Could you make it user-configurable?

i agree. i wished font smoothing would be available in 3.5b as a option.

[Rick Brewster]

*sigh* I guess it really is true that no new feature goes unpunished.

There is no configuration. Nor will there be. Nor could there be. What you see is what 3.5 will be. If the fonts seem "thin" at smaller sizes, that's because Paint.NET is actually detecting that GDI had disabled antialiasing (for that font size) and so it's rendering in ClearType instead and applying a grayscale filter.

Please TRUST ME. I tried EVERYTHING. I'm aware of EVERY deficiency, improvement, or difference from 3.36. I spent over two months on this. This is the best possible implementation. There will be no changes. If you want the best possible text, you will have to move to Vista or Win7. This is not a force-you-to-upgrade-your-OS conspiracy.

[alexo]

Hi Rick,

*sigh* I guess it really is true that no new feature goes unpunished.

Please don't get upset about this discussion. Nobody is suggesting that you're doing less than a terrific job with PDN.

Please hear me out. I don't bug you that often, do I? Give me 5 minutes of your attention and keep an open mind -- it's all I ask.

There is no configuration. Nor will there be. Nor could there be. What you see is what 3.5 will be. If the fonts seem "thin" at smaller sizes, that's because Paint.NET is actually detecting that GDI had disabled antialiasing (for that font size) and so it's rendering in ClearType instead and applying a grayscale filter.

Bingo! Look at the image below:

The right side is ClearType as rendered by MS-Word 2003, the left side is PDN 3.5

As you can see in the zoom, the colors of CT are all over the map but, and it is a very important "but" for me, the actual small text (size 16) looks much better and I can't really see the colors at all -- it looks black unless you zoom it (the bottom part of the image is zoomed 600%)

Please TRUST ME. I tried EVERYTHING. I'm aware of EVERY deficiency, improvement, or difference from 3.36. I spent over two months on this. This is the best possible implementation. There will be no changes. If you want the best possible text, you will have to move to Vista or Win7. This is not a force-you-to-upgrade-your-OS conspiracy.

My computer can't run Vista without a noticeable slowdown, so we're talking a hardware upgrade + the cost of an OS license.

Windows 7 is better than Vista but it costs even more *and* there is no upgrade path from XP so I cannot just transfer a hard drive over and upgrade, I'll have to install all the applications from scratch, mess up with settings for each, etc. Very disruptive in addition to expensive.

I'd rather pay you (or donate) a reasonable sum if making the grayscale filter optional will give me the same font rendering on XP as other applications have.

It cannot be more than 10 minutes of work for you and I'm willing to compensate you for it.

So, to summarize: I appreciate the time, effort and talent you poured into PDN, I don't doubt for a moment that you researched this extensively and arrived at an optimal solution, but i *BEG* you not to punish those that need a sub-optimal one.

Thank you for your time.

Best regards,

Alex.

[Rick Brewster]

The choice was between running a greyscale filter over a ClearType render, or letting it not use any antialiasing at all, or using supersampling in a way that would drive performance down to the floor (except on a $10,000 computer). ClearType does not belong on bitmaps; it is only for rendering UI text. You have to trust me that I've chosen the best strategy given what was available. I never said there weren't trade-offs.

It cannot be more than 10 minutes of work for you ...

Umm...

... and I'm willing to compensate you for it.

That's generous of you, but it's just not going to happen. It wouldn't even matter if we were in complete agreement. 3.5 is locked down and in strictly bug-fix mode, and what we are discussing here isn't a bug -- it is by design. Shipping is a feature too.

[BoltBait]

...It cannot be more than 10 minutes of work for you...

You're lucky Rick is so nice. If you'd said that to me I'd have banned you on the spot.

:twisted:

[alexo]

Hi Rick,

You have to trust me that I've chosen the best strategy given what was available. I never said there weren't trade-offs.

Well, since I cannot convince you, I will accept your answer as final.

It is unfortunate that you no longer provide the source code though. I could have just "customized" it to my specific need without bugging you.

ClearType does not belong on bitmaps; it is only for rendering UI text.

That is what I don't understand. You seem to feel strongly about it though, would you care to explain why is that the case?

Shipping is a feature too.

Can't argue with that. Thanks again for providing us with a great application and good luck on the final release.

Best regards,

Alex.

[Illnab1024]

That is what I don't understand. You seem to feel strongly about it though, would you care to explain why is that the case?

Rendering to subpixels is not advised at all for graphics processing -- it creates an image that when printed to a medium or scaled to a higher or lower resolution has those subpixel colors visible: i.e. it is only meant for LCD or CRT media which actually have subpixels.

[alexo]

Hi Illnab1024,

Rendering to subpixels is not advised at all for graphics processing -- it creates an image that when printed to a medium or scaled to a higher or lower resolution has those subpixel colors visible: i.e. it is only meant for LCD or CRT media which actually have subpixels.

Thanks for the explanation.

So, if I understand you correctly, if one only works with images that are neither printed nor scaled up, there should not be any problem?

[Illnab1024]

Correct. If you really want ClearType/FreeType rendering, I suggest a plug-in to do so. I highly doubt it ever being built into Paint.NET...

[alexo]

Correct. If you really want ClearType/FreeType rendering, I suggest a plug-in to do so.

That's an interesting idea but I was under the impression that plug-ins don't have the same access to the "rendering surface" (or however it is called) that the main program has. Or am I wrong?

[Illnab1024]

The have access to a "destination surface" that gets transposed to the current layer's data, and they have access to most if not all (?) of the C# .NET system functions. There have been several plugins that actually use GDI to draw things to the canvas, such as boltbait's polygon/stars plugin.

Out of boredom, I'm working on a plugin that does font rendering, except with more awesome sampling!

On-topic: Yes, it's definitely possible

[Tom Robinson]

If the built-in antialiasing isn't working for you, you can get almost the same effect by:

1. Copy the background layer you want the text positioned on, and paste into a new temporary image.

2. Image > Resize to 400%

3. Set the Zoom to 25%.

4. Create the text (in a new layer) at 4 x the point size you want, and with antialiasing turned OFF.

It will still look antialiased as you type, because of Zoom.

5. Set the Zoom to 100%.

6. Image > Resize to 25%, with Resampling: Best Quality

7. Copy the layer with the text, and paste it as a new layer into your main image.

If you copy entire layers, the text should line up perfectly with the background, just as it did in the temporary image.

I used to use this trick in MS Paint, before I discovered Paint.Net.

...Tom

[davzke]

After reading this I am very discouraged! Have been using Paint.net for quite a while and it was great until just recently. I have been doing graphic designs for T-shirts, mugs etc and this tool has been great but since so many of my designs have text seems that I will have to go to another program or upgrade to Windows7 but being retired that would be a strain on my budget and this above work around seems complicated and very time consuming. It seems that the font thing has only been a problem for me since the last update? Actually now I wish I had the old version back. Otherwise everthing else has been great. Can see my work at zazzle.com/davzke

[pyrochild]

This thread has gone through several different topics that are only related by the word "font." It also died for almost 3 months, and then again for a month. Poor thread. Let's just let it stay dead this time, 'kay? R.I.P.

Locked