Jay Arraich's Photoshop Tips

Everything you see on your monitor is displayed by colored pixels. Pixels are square. Letters in the alphabet, and objects in images contain edges that are curvy, or slanted. Since the square pixels can't be tilted, or rounded, their pointy corners get used to display these curved, or slanted edges resulting in a jagged appearance.

Anti-aliasing works to moderate the appearance of these jagged edges. Rather than try to describe how it does this, I'll just show you.

magnified curves with and without anti-aliasing

This illustration, above, shows, from the innermost one on the left, a curve without anti-aliasing, then one with anti-aliasing, then, again one with no anti-aliasing, and then, again, with anti-aliasing. This is, of course, a magnified screen capture. You can see that the curves with anti-aliasing applied look slightly blurry, with pixels at intermediate shades of gray added to the jagged corners.



Anti-Aliasing

	Everything you see on your monitor is displayed by colored pixels. Pixels are square. Letters in the alphabet, and objects in images contain edges that are curvy, or slanted. Since the square pixels can't be tilted, or rounded, their pointy corners get used to display these curved, or slanted edges resulting in a jagged appearance. Anti-aliasing works to moderate the appearance of these jagged edges. Rather than try to describe how it does this, I'll just show you. This illustration, above, shows, from the innermost one on the left, a curve without anti-aliasing, then one with anti-aliasing, then, again one with no anti-aliasing, and then, again, with anti-aliasing. This is, of course, a magnified screen capture. You can see that the curves with anti-aliasing applied look slightly blurry, with pixels at intermediate shades of gray added to the jagged corners.
	Anti-aliasing can be especially important when adding text to an image. In order to make the letters as readable as possible, you need to choose the right option from the type tool's anti-aliasing menu. Offered are options of None, Crisp, Strong, and Smooth.
Tutorials 6.0 Basics 5.5 Basics 6.0 Reference: Tools 6.0 Reference: Palettes 5.5 Reference: Tools 5.5 Reference: Palettes Selections Channels Homemade Letterhead Color Correction Combining Images Combining Images II Levels, Curves, or Brightness/Contrast? Multicolor Fill Dodge and Burn Duotones Abstract Background 3D Wire Mesh Text Doodling
Older Tutorials Quick Mask Adjusting Contrast Using Curves Scanning Negatives Rubberstamping More Adjustments Sharpening Filters Color	Top, left is an 800 % magnification of the letter C at 70 pts, with anti-aliasing set to None. Top right is an 800 % magnification of the same letter with anti-aliasing set to Crisp. Bottom, left is the same letter, same magnification with anti-aliasing set to Strong. Bottom right has anti-aliasing set to Smooth. Text that is this large doesn't show that much difference in the various settings, though choosing None can be distinctly worse. Where you will see big differences according to the font you are using, and your own preferences, is with text at very small sizes.

	Shown above, is a group of 8 pt letters, shown greatly magnified. Each row used a different anti-aliasing setting, from top to bottom, None, Crisp, Strong, and Smooth. At left is regular text, the group at right is bold text. To see exactly what is happening with letters this small, I will show you individual shots of the letter C, at 1600 % magnification. The first row below shows Regular text, the second row below is Bold. Hovering your cursor over the illustrations will show the identity of each.

	Feathering is somewhat similar in concept to anti-aliasing, but is not so subtle. If you'd like to see a comparison of anti-aliasing, and feathering, please see my page on Feathering.
	Photoshop Tips \| Links 6.0 Tools \| 6.0 Palettes 5.5 Tools \| 5.5 Palettes FreePhotos \| Animal Rights Site Index \| arraich.com jay@arraich.com Copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich. All rights reserved. All photographs copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich.

Anti-Aliasing

Copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich. All rights reserved. All photographs copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich.

Copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich. All rights reserved.
All photographs copyright © 2000 by Jay Arraich.