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#1 2008-10-29 10:52 am
Colored pixels in font antialiasing. Normal?
Hi,
I recently got a 17" MacBook Pro (Early 2008 edition) with a screen res of 1920x1200.
Something I noticed when I was reading text both in applications like Safari and TextEdit and in the general interface like Title bars is that most black text objects seem to be rendered with colored pixels like this (zoomed in). 
I experimented with the Appearance> "Font Smoothing" section of the System Preferences, and was surprised to find that out that setting it to "Standard (best for CRT)" actually altered the color of the pixels at the edges of letters (antialiasing), not just the strength. This setting made the edges grey not colored.
Out of the following options: Auto, Standard (best for CRT), Light, Med, Strong, Standard was the only option that made the pixels grey. I'll be leaving it set to Standard, because it makes text look easier to read to me.
Does anyone know why this would be? Also, what do you have your screen set to?
If I make black text in a graphics program, I expect the edges to be grey, not christmas colors. This is the first LCD I've ever owned (Upgraded from CRT eMac.)
thanks.
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#2 2008-10-29 10:58 am
- mrreet2001
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Re: Colored pixels in font antialiasing. Normal?
that should only be for system text ... when you put text into a graphics program it should be the correct colors.
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#3 2008-10-29 11:41 am
- Fracai
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Re: Colored pixels in font antialiasing. Normal?
It's because LCD screen pixels are composed of triplets of red, green, and blue sub-pixels. CRTs compose pixels as a single dot on screen by combining red, green, and blue beams in a single spot. LCDs take advantage of this by offering a higher smoothing density by treating each sub-pixel as an individual pixel for drawing edges.
Using CRT mode on an LCD will give grey smoothing, but LCD mode should give smoother and, as you noticed, easier to read edges.
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#4 2008-10-29 2:15 pm
- D'Eyncourt
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Re: Colored pixels in font antialiasing. Normal?
You might check the Color tab under the Color LCD System Preferences and click on the Calibrate button (after resetting your display smoothing style to Medium). It may be that your display settings are a bit off, especialy if you did a transfer of your account from your eMac to your new MBP.
I have the same model MBP as you and do not see such screen artifacts. I have my smoothing style set to Automatic.
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#5 2008-10-29 2:35 pm
- mrreet2001
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Re: Colored pixels in font antialiasing. Normal?
On my MBP i am running tiger with "automatic" and when I [ctrl]+scroll to max it get the "Christmas" colors.
2.66Ghz QuadCore-Nehalem w/24"LED CD ---2.2Ghz BlackMB---15" 2.4Ghz MBP(work)
Dual 2.3Ghz G5 (4G Ram, 2x 250G HD)(10.5 server)--- 400Mhz G4 PM (10.4 Server)
1.5GHz Powerbook---1.6Ghz G5 iMac
"So he fels down in a poisoning gas."
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#6 2008-10-29 8:51 pm
Re: Colored pixels in font antialiasing. Normal?
D'Eyncourt wrote:
You might check the Color tab under the Color LCD System Preferences...
Thanks for the tip. Although I did transfer my profile from the eMac, calibrating the monitor didn't create a noticeable difference in color or the text antialiasing.
I thought that perhaps the readability issue wasn't being verified entirely by zooming in (control-scroll); so I looked at the screen with a magnifying glass, and it looked just like the screenshots I posted.
So I guess I'll be leaving my setting on CRT until I understand the situation better. 
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mrreet2001 wrote:
On my MBP i am running tiger with "automatic" and when I [ctrl]+scroll to max it get the "Christmas" colors.
Yay; I'm not paranoid!
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Thanks all.
Last edited by windigo (2008-10-29 8:52 pm)
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