moxielabouche Posted March 4, 2014 Share Posted March 4, 2014 Fair notice: the picture of my project has a lot of skin. (I'm a burlesque dancer.) Short version: my text appears pixelated at 24pt or less, even with anti-aliasing enabled. Longer version: I'm a new Paint.net user, basically teaching myself as I go along. The project is a business card. I started with a canvas size of 2x3.5". Both fonts that I used, one blocky, one script, look very rough around the edges. Anti-aliasing is enabled What might be causing this and what can I do to prevent it? Thanks, Moxie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pdnnoob Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 Try putting the text on its own layer and running the Basic Antialias plugin. Quote No, Paint.NET is not spyware...but, installing it is an IQ test. ~BoltBait Blend modes are like the filling in your sandwich. It's the filling that can change your experience of the sandwich. ~Ego Eram Reputo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moxielabouche Posted March 5, 2014 Author Share Posted March 5, 2014 Try putting the text on its own layer and running the Basic Antialias plugin. I was able to install the plug-in fine, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. Moxie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david.atwell Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 One way you can minimize it is to start with your canvas at double the desired final size (so, 4x7) at 200 DPI and then shrink it down to the desired size when you're done with the image. That will have the side benefit of printing in a more clear way. Quote The Doctor: There was a goblin, or a trickster, or a warrior... A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world.Amy: But how did it end up in there?The Doctor: You know fairy tales. A good wizard tricked it.River Song: I hate good wizards in fairy tales; they always turn out to be him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moxielabouche Posted March 5, 2014 Author Share Posted March 5, 2014 One way you can minimize it is to start with your canvas at double the desired final size (so, 4x7) at 200 DPI and then shrink it down to the desired size when you're done with the image. That will have the side benefit of printing in a more clear way. I had wondered if resizing would affect it, but was concerned that it would affect it negatively. I'll give that a try. Moxie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ego Eram Reputo Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 Start big. Really big. Bigger than you imagine it should be.... http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/27966-hard-copies-have-extra-borders/?p=405435 Printing requires all those extra pixels to make a neat job. If you need your image made smaller for screen use you can always resize down. Like this... Quote ebook: Mastering Paint.NET | resources: Plugin Index | Stereogram Tut | proud supporter of Codelab plugins: EER's Plugin Pack | Planetoid | StickMan | WhichSymbol+ | Dr Scott's Markup Renderer | CSV Filetype | dwarf horde plugins: Plugin Browser | ShapeMaker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moxielabouche Posted March 5, 2014 Author Share Posted March 5, 2014 On 5/03/2014 at 7:26 PM, Ego Eram Reputo said: Start big. Really big. Bigger than you imagine it should be.... http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/27966-hard-copies-have-extra-borders/?p=405435 Printing requires all those extra pixels to make a neat job. If you need your image made smaller for screen use you can always resize down. Like this... Thanks! And I like the font in the photobucket example. Do you know what it is? Moxie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ego Eram Reputo Posted March 5, 2014 Share Posted March 5, 2014 It's called Dragon Is Coming. I got it from DaFont.com, but check the license carefully. There is a link here: http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/28009-font-tricks/?p=405769 Quote ebook: Mastering Paint.NET | resources: Plugin Index | Stereogram Tut | proud supporter of Codelab plugins: EER's Plugin Pack | Planetoid | StickMan | WhichSymbol+ | Dr Scott's Markup Renderer | CSV Filetype | dwarf horde plugins: Plugin Browser | ShapeMaker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moxielabouche Posted March 5, 2014 Author Share Posted March 5, 2014 It's called Dragon Is Coming. I got it from DaFont.com, but check the license carefully. There is a link here: http://forums.getpaint.net/index.php?/topic/28009-font-tricks/?p=405769 You're a gentleman and a scholar. Moxie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ego Eram Reputo Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 You're welcome Moxie. P.S That's a great username you have there Quote ebook: Mastering Paint.NET | resources: Plugin Index | Stereogram Tut | proud supporter of Codelab plugins: EER's Plugin Pack | Planetoid | StickMan | WhichSymbol+ | Dr Scott's Markup Renderer | CSV Filetype | dwarf horde plugins: Plugin Browser | ShapeMaker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moxielabouche Posted March 6, 2014 Author Share Posted March 6, 2014 You're welcome Moxie. P.S That's a great username you have there Thanks, it's my stage name. The best part of starting in burlesque is picking your new name. Moxie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rick Brewster Posted March 6, 2014 Share Posted March 6, 2014 My guess is you're on Windows XP or Vista (without the "Platform Update"), where Paint.NET has to use GDI instead of DirectWrite for font rendering. There are some cases where GDI just refuses to do antialiasing even though it's being told to do so, and it doesn't tell the application that it's being overridden. Paint.NET does its best to detect this and uses an alternate antialiasing trick (it uses ClearType and then greyscale-ifies it), but it's not perfect and doesn't always work. I can tell that the "Moxie" text in the first image just isn't being antialiased at all. Bleh. However, the "La Bouche" text is, as is all the text in the 2nd image. However, because you're working at such a low resolution and text size, the antialiasing will not look good, in part because GDI only antialiases in the x-direction and not the y-direction (if that doesn't make sense then don't worry about it ). GDI just doesn't produce very good looking text at those sizes unless it's being used for UI. It is not a good renderer for design and graphics stuff. Solutions include: 1) if you're on Vista then install the "Platform Update" via Windows Update which will enable Paint.NET to use DirectWrite instead of GDI, or 2) upgrade to Windows 7 or newer (8.1 is recommended but 7 is perfectly fine too). If you're already on Windows 7, then try out the paint.net 4.0 beta. It has a "smooth" text rendering mode (it's the default one) in the toolbar for the Text tool and it is probably more appropriate for a business card, especially for small text. Also, make sure antialiasing is enabled in the toolbar, of course. 1 Quote The Paint.NET Blog: https://blog.getpaint.net/ Donations are always appreciated! https://www.getpaint.net/donate.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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