Text rendering on XP

[avranju]

Hi,

I think I am missing something with rendering text on XP using Paint.NET in version 3.5.5 because it appears quite jagged and low quality to me even with anti-aliasing on. It is a little strange because I remember that it used to work great in older versions. I have a machine which has 3.36 on it and here's some text rendered using that version with Arial font at size 18 and font weight bold:

And here's the same image created using Paint.NET 3.5.5 with the same font settings:

Clearly the 3.36 output seems to be smoother. Is there some setting I need to fiddle with in 3.5.5 to get the same quality on XP?

Thanks!

--

Ranju. V

http://blogorama.nerdworks.in/

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[Lance McKnight]

I find that using dpy's Anti-Alias Assistant to be quite helpful to smooth out the text.

Another option is to upgrade to Win 7, as I am told that Win 7 offer superior text rendering than XP does. I'm still stuck on anarchic XP.

Edit: Added link to dpy's plug-in pack.

Edited June 12, 2010 by Lance McKnight

[avranju]

I find that using dpy's Anti-Alias Assistant to be quite helpful to smooth out the text.

Another option is to upgrade to Win 7, as I am told that Win 7 offer superior text rendering than XP does. I'm still stuck on anarchic XP.

Edit: Added link to dpy's plug-in pack.

Thanks for that tip about dpy's plug-in. Interestingly, when I used one of the text tools that come with the plugin here's the result I got.

Looks like it is only Paint.NET's native text rendering that needs tweaking or perhaps it depends on some system setting or some such that needs to be setup right.

--

Ranju. V

http://blogorama.nerdworks.in/

--

[Simon Brown]

Make sure you have anti-aliasing enabled.

[Rick Brewster]

XP is on life support anyway. The text rendering there uses GDI, which is "more jaggy" than GDI+ which had to be abandoned for stability reasons. (GDI+ = crash crash crash crash crash)

As mentioned, upgrading to Win7 makes everything awesome. (Or Vista SP2 with the Platform Update component, I should add.) DirectWrite is light years ahead of GDI+ in every regard.

There are other discussions on this that you can find by searching, where I give strong reasons for this, so I won't repeat what's already there. Rest assured this is not an attempt to strong arm you into upgrading your OS version, even though I am an employee and shareholder of Microsoft. On versions of Windows where it's available, DirectWrite is used for its excellent text rendering quality. Otherwise, GDI is used for its stability, as compared to GDI+ (which is what v3.36 and earlier used).

[Lance McKnight]

The text rendering there uses GDI, which is "more jaggy" than GDI+ which had to be abandoned for stability reasons. (GDI+ = crash crash crash crash crash)

Your response had me thinking about the magic wand and it's selection on XP. I have noticed with the v3.5.5 that it is more jagged than it was with v.3.36. Is it using similar rendering engine or is that a separate engine? Using dpy's AA and BoltBait's Feather plug-ins, sometime in tandem, actually does a great job of smoothing out the edges.

I am sure that upgrading to Win 7 will take care of that, as I have read it on your blog, and right now, it's about finding the right PC to do that. My PC is currently 6 years old.

Not trying to get off-topic from the original poster's question.

Edited June 13, 2010 by Lance McKnight

[avranju]

XP is on life support anyway. The text rendering there uses GDI, which is "more jaggy" than GDI+ which had to be abandoned for stability reasons. (GDI+ = crash crash crash crash crash)

Wow, I didn't know that GDI+ had stability issues. Interesting! And yes, text rendering does look quite good on Windows 7. I was interested in XP because OS upgrades happen a tad more slowly at work. Wonder if these GDI+ stability problems persist in WPF on XP. But then they probably don't use GDI+ for anything. Thanks for the response!

[BoltBait]

The best thing you can do on XP is to use a plugin that uses GDI+ for text rendering.

Here is one that I wrote:

It has 3 types of aliasing options: none, anti-alias, and ClearType.

You'll need to build this into a dll using CodeLab, since it was only a "proof of concept" demonstration and not a published plugin from me.

I think dpy added this technique to his text plugins. But, I don't believe his plugins go all the way to ClearType.

[Rick Brewster]

Your response had me thinking about the magic wand and it's selection on XP. ... Is it using similar rendering engine or is that a separate engine?

Unrelated and by design. It uses XOR and a stipple pattern. "Jagged" is really the wrong term here -- the selection's outline is anti-aliased, but purposefully textured.

[pyrochild]

I think dpy added this technique to his text plugins. But, I don't believe his plugins go all the way to ClearType.

You don't usually want to use ClearType for images anyway. It's really designed for UI, as the subpixel rendering is display-dependent. While it improves text appearance and readability on LCD displays similar to the one the text was rendered for, it looks like complete garbage on some types of LCDs and all CRTs, and probably others.