Aliasing problem in IE8 captures: XP vs. Win7

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David Makulec
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Aliasing problem in IE8 captures: XP vs. Win7

Unread post by David Makulec »

I ran into an aliasing issue while configuring a new system. Maybe someone here can offer advice.

BACKGROUND:

I document software that runs under Internet Explorer; other browsers are not supported. (This decision was made before I got here, and is not my call -- or preference. So let's not go down the "browser wars" road.)

I discovered long ago, while working under Windows XP, that if I turned off "Always use ClearType for HTML" in IE's Advanced Internet Options, I can get clean, unaliased captures of the software.

Recently, my XP box died. I'm configuring a 64-bit Windows 7 system to use going forward.

This box came with IE9 installed. Inexplicably, Microsoft has *removed* that option setting from IE9, so you're stuck with ClearType under IE (even if it's otherwise turned off).

So I rolled the system back to IE8. The option's there, and I turned it off again.

This *almost* worked. But, for some reason I can't figure out, it looks like the buttons within the application -- and, at first glance, *only* the buttons -- are still aliasing.

See the attached capture (blown up 1000% to make the effect obvious).
AliasingProblem.png
AliasingProblem.png (8.12 KiB) Viewed 9329 times
On the left is an example of the "clean" IE8 capture under XP. Note that nothing is aliased.

In the middle is the Win7 IE8 capture *with* ClearType. Note that everything is aliased.

On the right is the Win7 IE8 capture *without* ClearType. Note that the aliasing is gone elsewhere, but a different, coarser, aliasing remains on the buttons.

Any ideas why this is happening? And, if so, how to get back to an all-unaliased capture?

Thanks in advance for any input.
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Tim Green
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Re: Aliasing problem in IE8 captures: XP vs. Win7

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi David,

I've never wanted to do this but as far as I can see MS now assumes that ClearType is always on and the fonts on Windows 7 and Vista are actually optimized for use with ClearType, which is probably what you are seeing when you turn it off. I definitely wouldn't downgrade to IE 8 just for something like this. That's burning down a house to kill a mouse. IE8 is the wrong browser for Windows 7, it's now really only for XP.

Of course, tastes differ, but if I can add my 2 cents, I always find that screenshots without anti-aliasing in the fonts look pretty awful, like old 8-bit video games. It somehow makes them feel dated, like WinHelp, perhaps by association. Aliased fonts will also look odd if you zoom them to 1500 percent as in your example, but normal-sized screenshots from screens with reasonable resolutions look better.

An art historian I know recently explained this to me by showing me close-ups of details in Rembrandt's paintings: He pointed out that the paintings only look as though they have fine detail when you view them as a whole. In reality, it's an illusion. If you look at the actual details they are really abstract and quite fuzzy, using clever tricks that are not unlike anti-aliasing to give the illusion of detail when you look at the whole picture. As he put it, "Our subjective perception of reality is actually quite fuzzy at the edges, and in any case we only see sharply in a very small area at the center of our field of vision, and if images reproduce this they feel real to us."

Screenshots of fonts that are not anti-aliased may look "sharp" but I would argue that that's not necessarily a good thing. As usual, of course, your mileage may vary... 8)
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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David Makulec
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Joined: Tue Nov 03, 2009 6:14 pm

Re: Aliasing problem in IE8 captures: XP vs. Win7

Unread post by David Makulec »

Understood. (Although Microsoft is *assuming* nothing in the case of IE9. Instead, it *dictates* what will happen in IE9, giving you no option -- contrary to the still-available option at the system level.)

However, in the case of my employer's web-based apps, all onscreen fonts are very, very small. (Don't get me started. :roll: )

Thus, every single pixel counts, especially when scaled to fit within the margins of the "printed" (PDF) page -- their chosen Help format, which we also use for our other (non-Help) support documents.

I don't resample captures for exactly the same reason. The result would be blurred, often nearly unreadable, fonts throughout.

Granting that it's a matter of taste, I'm still left with the particular "mystery" unaddressed by your response: Why are the buttons, and *only* the buttons, treated differently under IE8/Win7?

I'll continue to investigate.

Thanks for your input, though, as always.
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Re: Aliasing problem in IE8 captures: XP vs. Win7

Unread post by Tim Green »

Hi David,

If you're dealing with very tiny fonts I understand the problem. I also did quite a bit of googling after reading your post this morning and was unable to find anything really final on what the situation on this is in Windows 7. Font management and anti-aliasing are one area where Apple is still several generations ahead of Microsoft, probably because they actually cared about good typography right from the start (they don't care about help and documentation, however, and still don't have a viable help system). In OS X solving this problem is very simple: There is a setting for the cut-off point below which fonts should not be anti-aliased at all -- I think the default is 7 points, but you can adjust it yourself.
Regards,
Tim (EC Software Documentation & User Support)

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David Makulec
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Joined: Tue Nov 03, 2009 6:14 pm

Re: Aliasing problem in IE8 captures: XP vs. Win7

Unread post by David Makulec »

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! :hoorahb:

Found it.

In Win7:
1) Enter "Appearance" into the start menu search.
2) Select "Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows" from the Control Panel.
3) The setting that should be changed under the custom option is: "Smooth edges of screen fonts," which should be turned off.

Making this change results in un-aliased buttons in our Web apps.

There is a similar setting in XP -- where you'd also enable ClearType at the system level -- which was turned off already on my system.

Now I can fritter away the day on some other intractable problem. :frustration:
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