5 ms·

I can't think of any other rasterizer than Freetype that has the option to enable hinting and then disable anti-aliasing. I've never tried that combination, wha

I can't think of any other rasterizer than Freetype that has the option to enable hinting and then disable anti-aliasing. I've never tried that combination, what would be the point of that?

bmh 5y ago
Hinting was originally created for fonts that had zero anti-aliasing. On Windows, prior to Cleartype, all fonts were rendered in binary, so it was even more important to have hinting there (eg so that the two stems of an 'H' are equal width, or the distance between the two symmetrical parts of an 'm' are equal size). As screen resolutions rise, the need for hinting diminishes. On a 4K desktop monitor you still benefit from hinting. I think 8K desktop monitor resolution (at say 28 inch size) is probably where hinting loses relevance.
- chronogram 5y ago
  > On a 4K desktop monitor you still benefit from hinting. I don’t have a 4K desktop monitor but I was curious to see if it does anything with larger fonts. Trying it out with Open Sans and it does still give an increase in contrast on a 34px title font sample, but not as significant as on the smaller body text: https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=17cf866c-ede1-11eb-abb7-b9a7ff2ee17c https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index....
  - bmh 5y ago
    Yes indeed. Sub-pixel RGB antialiasing gives you almost 3x resolution on the X coordinate, so hinting the vertical stems is not so noticeable. But because there's no sub-pixel antialiasing on the Y coordinates, the horizontal stems still benefit visibly from hinting.
    - rbanffy 5y ago
      On higher resolution screens, subpixel antialiasing loses relevance. Also, on the screen I'm writing, RGB subpixel antialiasing would increase the vertical resolution because the screen is rotated.
barefootliam 5y ago
It's the default combination for printing, and it's probably also default (i didn't check) e.g. on one-bit e-ink screens.

I can't think of any other rasterizer than Freetype that has the option to enable hinting and then disable anti-aliasing. I've never tried that combination, what would be the point of that?

bmh 5y ago

Hinting was originally created for fonts that had zero anti-aliasing. On Windows, prior to Cleartype, all fonts were rendered in binary, so it was even more important to have hinting there (eg so that the two stems of an 'H' are equal width, or the distance between the two symmetrical parts of an 'm' are equal size). As screen resolutions rise, the need for hinting diminishes. On a 4K desktop monitor you still benefit from hinting. I think 8K desktop monitor resolution (at say 28 inch size) is probably where hinting loses relevance.

chronogram 5y ago
> On a 4K desktop monitor you still benefit from hinting. I don’t have a 4K desktop monitor but I was curious to see if it does anything with larger fonts. Trying it out with Open Sans and it does still give an increase in contrast on a 34px title font sample, but not as significant as on the smaller body text: https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index.html?uid=17cf866c-ede1-11eb-abb7-b9a7ff2ee17c https://cdn.knightlab.com/libs/juxtapose/latest/embed/index....
- bmh 5y ago
  Yes indeed. Sub-pixel RGB antialiasing gives you almost 3x resolution on the X coordinate, so hinting the vertical stems is not so noticeable. But because there's no sub-pixel antialiasing on the Y coordinates, the horizontal stems still benefit visibly from hinting.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    On higher resolution screens, subpixel antialiasing loses relevance. Also, on the screen I'm writing, RGB subpixel antialiasing would increase the vertical resolution because the screen is rotated.

barefootliam 5y ago

It's the default combination for printing, and it's probably also default (i didn't check) e.g. on one-bit e-ink screens.