Without going into too much gory detail, anti-aliasing is the term used to describe how the edges of shapes get rendered with pixels. With anti-aliasing turned off, pixels are either just “on” or “off” and you see jagged edges. As we will see later, in some scenarios turning off anti-aliasing is the best option. With anti-aliasing on, the edges of shapes have semi-transparent pixels applied to give a smoother appearance.
But as you can see in Photoshop, anti-aliasing isn’t just “on” or “off”, you have options:
Strong, Crisp, Smooth….. But which one is best?
And the answer is…
The answer, of course, depends. Sorry if I got your hopes up and you were expecting a simple answer. The very best solution here, is to try everything and see what looks best.
If you are working with very large type, the different settings matter much less. With a block of small text, you are able to see how dramatically the different types of anti-aliasing matter.
QUICK TIP: If you are rotating text within Photoshop (something Photoshop notoriously sucks at), the “Crisp” setting is known to to have magical fixing powers for this. The problem is that the baseline is often disrupted after you rotate and some letters can sometimes appear to be above it while others below. It’s not a 100% fix, but if this ever happens to you, definitely try setting the anti-aliasing to “crisp” to see if it fixes it for you.
Different rules, different looks…
Each of the different anti-aliasing settings uses a different set of rules to determine just how it is going to apply the semi-transparent pixels around the edges of shapes. Different rules, different looks. Photoshop has named these different looks in an effort to describe the effect they have: Sharp, Crisp, Strong, and Smooth. Take a look at the subtle differences:
The differences are obvious while zoomed in, but those differences still have a substantial effect at regular size:
The important point here is to be aware of these different settings, and if you are unhappy with the way your text is looking, to play with the different choices.
With very small text…
The smaller you get with text, the pickier you need to be with your anti-aliasing. In fact, at very small text sizes, turning it off can actually be your best solution. Take a look at some small type which is suffocating in it’s own anti-aliasing:
Turning it off, in this case, makes this type much more readable:
So how about it folks? Do you have any tips or comments regarding anti-aliasing?
[...] Anti-Alias Setting is best, answered by TutorialBlog. Tags: eye-candy, graphics, photoshop, [...]
Medium to large text: almost always “sharp” because it makes the text stick to the pixel, thus making it look clean and sharp without any blurry edges. At smaller sizes, “sharp” sometimes transforms the type too much.
If anti-aliasing suffocates very small text, the type is probably too small for reading anyway. I don’t find the last two examples easily readable, neither anti-aliased nor aliased.
I’ve got a good tip if you have a font which visibility is bad when using anti-alias in Photoshop. Duplicate the text layer (set to crisp) and set the opacity to 75% or thereabouts. Should be more crisp than any of the other settings. Works great if you have a thin and small font.
[...] ยป Photoshop: Which Anti-Alias Setting is Best? [...]
Anti-alias at none is good to simulate web fonts in a photoshop template
Anti-alias at Sharp is good to make menus or have small text (under 15pt)
The rest is the choice of the designer.