Printing smooth fonts in Photoshop

[peter_jarmuda]

I have a problem. Every time that I print an image with some thxt

on it, the letters are very pixalated. @What am I supposed to do in

photoshop to get smooth fonts. I print the pictures in the photo

lab, so it can't be the printer.

 

Thank you in advance

 

Peter

[jeremy_horowitz]

Images created in Photoshop are just a display of pixels (including any text you create). When you print a Photoshop image, you see the pixels created by Photoshop that are intended to make the text look smooth, but it's mainly a lot of smart guessing by Photoshop.

 

By contrast, when you use a program like Adobe Illustrator (or Microsoft Word, for that matter), the text isn't just pixels. The text in the image is backed by a mathematical description of how -exactly- to render that text -- whether to the screen or to the printer.

 

For example, let's say the task is "draw a line on paper from point A to point B."

 

If you drew it the Photoshop way, you'd make one dot at point A, then another dot next to it, then another dot next to that one, and another...until you got to point B.

 

If you drew it the Illustrator way, you'd place your pen at point A and drag your pen to point B. And that's it.

 

Think about how your Photoshop-style drawing of the line would look: Like a bunch of pixels.

 

That's the essence of the distance. Photoshop prints a pixel-based representation of your text. Illustrator (and other programs like it), actually print your text (and other shapes) smoothly because it is recogized as text (and the other respective shapes).

 

For more, search the web for articles on "raster vs. vector" images.

 

Hope this helps!

[skidoo]

But there's no reason you shouldn't be able to print an image from PS with clean (smooth) text. Two factor's are especially important.

 

1. Make sure the anti-aliasing method for the text in question is set to something other than "None." This will cause the edges of the text to blend smoothly against the background, creating the illusion that it is created from curved lines, as opposed to individual pixels. See the help topic "Specifying anti-aliasing."

 

2. Make sure your pixels-per-inch value is set sufficiently high. You specify this in the "Image Size" dialog. The higher this value, the more fine the output resolution.

 

Good luck!

[sean de merchant httpw]

First and foremost, in any recent version of PS text layers are vector objects until you rasterize them explicitly. I know CS2 will even automatically resize your text layers when you resize an image so that you can instantly craft a poster and a web jpeg that have the same proportions with next to zero effort.

 

That said, as was already noted, ensure that you are using anti-aliased fonts. Also, make sure the font looks clean at 100% zoom (actual pixels). If it does not, then use another font.

 

You should also make sure that you are creating images at the printers resolution. Hence 1 inch high text should be 300 pixels high for a Fuji Frontier and etcetera.

 

All that said, what resolution are you sending to the printer? Are you printing JPEG or TIFF files?

 

hope this helps,

 

Sean

[jim mucklin]

Are you printing proof directly across the photo? Are you printing on a layer? Could you post an example? If the photo is good then is would sound like you created a text box where the text is to large in scale to the photo. Once again are these jpegs or tiff's, give us some more info

[byronlawrence]

it depends on the font you print I would guess.

 

however if you convert your font layer to a path it will create vector based objects (like illustrator uses) that you can rasterize once you have sized the final product and maybe then you won't get the pixelated look.

[byronlawrence]

this is a method they use for posters.

[davidclick]

<p>Thanks for answers here, I too had this problem :-)</p>