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There's no consensus. Cleartype is the most advanced technology out there AFAIK, because it considers many things macOS' font rendering method does ignore. Howe

There's no consensus. Cleartype is the most advanced technology out there AFAIK, because it considers many things macOS' font rendering method does ignore. However, the end result is that fonts get distorded heavily, whereas other OS such as macOS, iOS, Linux and Android do respect the fonts' original shape.

chrismorgan 6y ago
macOS does its own peculiar brand of glyph dilation. A couple of links about this: https://twitter.com/pcwalton/status/918991457532354560 https://twitter.com/pcwalton/status/918991457532354560, https://twitter.com/pcwalton/status/918593367914803201 https://twitter.com/pcwalton/status/918593367914803201. I would count this as heavy distortion, far heavier than anything any other platform may do.
snazz 6y ago
Here's my (somewhat oversimplified) take: - macOS uses no sub pixel hinting since High Sierra. Instead, it's just grayscale antialiasing. To make up for the unnatural thinness that occurs when grayscale antialiasing is used, fonts are artificially bolded by a small amount. - Linux/FreeType uses very nice-looking sub pixel hinting and maintains the clarity of fonts pretty well. The spacing between characters may not be pixel-perfect, if I remember correctly. - Windows/ClearType snaps fonts to the pixel grid very aggressively, resulting in some amount of distortion. Many of the default Windows fonts look really good with ClearType, while others appear strange, especially at smaller sizes. In terms of technology, ClearType is the most advanced.
- baybal2 6y ago
  > The spacing between characters may not be pixel-perfect, if I remember correctly. Behdad has since axed usage of hints from True/OpenType fonts. Though the rationality of "more precise positioning" is kind of irrelevant on modern HiDPI screens.
- chrismorgan 6y ago
  I’m not satisfied with your macOS glyph dilation explanations. I don’t know the timelines involved, but my impression was that macOS’s glyph dilation has been there from the start, or at the very least waaaaay before they threw away their subpixel antialiasing. (When you wrote “sub pixel hinting”, I’m presuming you actually meant subpixel antialiasing, though feel free to correct me; but hinting and antialiasing are entirely different things, and “subpixel hinting”, which I imagine would mean hinting to subpixel boundaries (which would also seem a weird thing to do), isn’t a standard term.) Using greyscale antialiasing doesn’t inherently make things appear thinner or thicker. The only thing that will make things appear thinner or thicker is if the antialiasing is done in the wrong colour space, typically meaning linear versus gamma-corrected.
  - snazz 6y ago
    > (When you wrote “sub pixel hinting”, I’m presuming you actually meant subpixel antialiasing, though feel free to correct me; but hinting and antialiasing are entirely different things, and “subpixel hinting”, which I imagine would mean hinting to subpixel boundaries (which would also seem a weird thing to do), isn’t a standard term.) Yep, I think you're right about this. I can no longer edit my comment, but pretend I did a quick s/hinting/rendering/g. > Using greyscale antialiasing doesn’t inherently make things appear thinner or thicker. The only thing that will make things appear thinner or thicker is if the antialiasing is done in the wrong colour space, typically meaning linear versus gamma-corrected. Huh, thanks for the correction. Do you have any idea what the "Use font smoothing when available" setting actually does, given that it makes fonts thinner and more similar-looking to Windows rendering when turned off?
    - chrismorgan 6y ago
      That’s the checkbox that enables glyph dilation. See my other comment in this thread for a couple of links about that. Bit of a crock calling it “font smoothing”, I reckon, but that’s what they call it there and I can’t stop them. (In all this about macOS, I’m going almost entirely on what I’ve seen and heard from others. I’ve never had a Mac.)

chrismorgan 6y ago

macOS does its own peculiar brand of glyph dilation. A couple of links about this: https://twitter.com/pcwalton/status/918991457532354560 https://twitter.com/pcwalton/status/918991457532354560, https://twitter.com/pcwalton/status/918593367914803201 https://twitter.com/pcwalton/status/918593367914803201. I would count this as heavy distortion, far heavier than anything any other platform may do.

snazz 6y ago

Here's my (somewhat oversimplified) take: - macOS uses no sub pixel hinting since High Sierra. Instead, it's just grayscale antialiasing. To make up for the unnatural thinness that occurs when grayscale antialiasing is used, fonts are artificially bolded by a small amount. - Linux/FreeType uses very nice-looking sub pixel hinting and maintains the clarity of fonts pretty well. The spacing between characters may not be pixel-perfect, if I remember correctly. - Windows/ClearType snaps fonts to the pixel grid very aggressively, resulting in some amount of distortion. Many of the default Windows fonts look really good with ClearType, while others appear strange, especially at smaller sizes. In terms of technology, ClearType is the most advanced.

baybal2 6y ago
> The spacing between characters may not be pixel-perfect, if I remember correctly. Behdad has since axed usage of hints from True/OpenType fonts. Though the rationality of "more precise positioning" is kind of irrelevant on modern HiDPI screens.
chrismorgan 6y ago
I’m not satisfied with your macOS glyph dilation explanations. I don’t know the timelines involved, but my impression was that macOS’s glyph dilation has been there from the start, or at the very least waaaaay before they threw away their subpixel antialiasing. (When you wrote “sub pixel hinting”, I’m presuming you actually meant subpixel antialiasing, though feel free to correct me; but hinting and antialiasing are entirely different things, and “subpixel hinting”, which I imagine would mean hinting to subpixel boundaries (which would also seem a weird thing to do), isn’t a standard term.) Using greyscale antialiasing doesn’t inherently make things appear thinner or thicker. The only thing that will make things appear thinner or thicker is if the antialiasing is done in the wrong colour space, typically meaning linear versus gamma-corrected.
- snazz 6y ago
  > (When you wrote “sub pixel hinting”, I’m presuming you actually meant subpixel antialiasing, though feel free to correct me; but hinting and antialiasing are entirely different things, and “subpixel hinting”, which I imagine would mean hinting to subpixel boundaries (which would also seem a weird thing to do), isn’t a standard term.) Yep, I think you're right about this. I can no longer edit my comment, but pretend I did a quick s/hinting/rendering/g. > Using greyscale antialiasing doesn’t inherently make things appear thinner or thicker. The only thing that will make things appear thinner or thicker is if the antialiasing is done in the wrong colour space, typically meaning linear versus gamma-corrected. Huh, thanks for the correction. Do you have any idea what the "Use font smoothing when available" setting actually does, given that it makes fonts thinner and more similar-looking to Windows rendering when turned off?
  - chrismorgan 6y ago
    That’s the checkbox that enables glyph dilation. See my other comment in this thread for a couple of links about that. Bit of a crock calling it “font smoothing”, I reckon, but that’s what they call it there and I can’t stop them. (In all this about macOS, I’m going almost entirely on what I’ve seen and heard from others. I’ve never had a Mac.)