Snow Leopard Font Smoothing?

[ob22]

Since I installed Snow Leopard I noticed that, system wide, font shading doesnt seem to be working at least for me or it looks different.
I've double checked that this is enabled and have no idea how to fix it but its annoying.
Did they change the way font shading works in 10.6 or is it my computer being weird?
Thanks

[r.j.s]

I've noticed that the fonts look ... different as well.

[drlunanerd]

Subpixel font anti-aliasing working fine here. They may have ramped it up a notch from Leopard but I can't be bothered to do a side-by-side comparison at the moment

[ob22]

Ok so its not just me. One place I've really noticed it is in the Menu Bar, when I used to highlight something the text would almost seem bolded but now it doesnt do that.

[joerick]

Have also noticed this. I always had font smoothing set to 'Light' in Leopard, now I've got no choice. The only place I really notice is the menus and in iTunes. Safari seems the same.

I'm sure I'll get used to it. It's just a little... unnerving!

[Timan]

Can try this in terminal, re-enabled subpixel font smoothing for me.

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2

[bob_the_gorilla]

Thanks, Timan. Seems my Mac doesn't know the display – a new HP2159m, connected via DVI – is an LCD? Or at least, an LCD capable of subpixel antialiasing. It didn't autodetect it in Leopard, and I had to choose it myself.

Stupidly, I saw the LCD font smoothing box was only half-checked under Snow Leopard, and wondered if the problem had been fixed so I fully checked it. Turned out it hadn't, and subpixel smoothing got disabled. This reenables it, and half-checks that box again. Cheers.

[doug in albq]

10.6.1 better fix this

[TheSpaz]

I set my LCD font smoothing to OFF. Setting it to "off" is the same as Leopard's "Standard - Best for CRT" option.

[jhero]

Originally Posted by Timan

Can try this in terminal, re-enabled subpixel font smoothing for me.

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2

This worked for me

[ob22]

Originally Posted by Timan

Can try this in terminal, re-enabled subpixel font smoothing for me.

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2

Before I do this, since I barely ever use the Terminal, what's the code to turn what this code does, off?
Thanks

[ventro]

Originally Posted by TheSpaz

I set my LCD font smoothing to OFF. Setting it to "off" is the same as Leopard's "Standard - Best for CRT" option.

Finally someone who knows what they'e talking about. You're NOT supposed to combine sub-pixel anti-aliasing and regular anti-aliasing. It makes all the text look bold, especially light text on a dark background. That's because it's being anti-aliased twice.

If you want your text to render properly, turn OFF sub-pixel anti-aliasing. Sure, it sounds cool, but it's actually really terrible, and distorts your text.

[TheSpaz]

Originally Posted by ventro

Finally someone who knows what they'e talking about. You're NOT supposed to combine sub-pixel anti-aliasing and regular anti-aliasing. It makes all the text look bold, especially light text on a dark background. That's because it's being anti-aliased twice.

If you want your text to render properly, turn OFF sub-pixel anti-aliasing. Sure, it sounds cool, but it's actually really terrible, and distorts your text.

True that! I've always hated LCD font smoothing. It looks like crap to me. I hate the bold reverse text. Standard font smoothing looks so nice to me.

[Arnoud]

So if we should turn OFF sub-pixel anti-aliasing (which looked ugly on my Samsung monitor anyway and wasn't a solution for me), how do we get the Leopard font smoothing back?

[TheSpaz]

Originally Posted by Arnoud

So if we should turn OFF sub-pixel anti-aliasing (which looked ugly on my Samsung monitor anyway and wasn't a solution for me), how do we get the Leopard font smoothing back?

Just uncheck "Use LCD font smoothing when available"

[Arnoud]

Originally Posted by TheSpaz

Just uncheck "Use LCD font smoothing when available"

I believe that's what it was set to before and it wasn't smoothing the fonts as in Leopard. I'll try it again when I get home though.. thanks.

[Arnoud]

Done, restarted, still no Leopard-like font smoothing. The menu bar actually looks fine again, but text in applications (such as the browser, text in this forum) do not and look more like ClearType (i.e. ugly font smoothing). *sigh* Hoping for a fix from Apple.

[TheSpaz]

Originally Posted by Arnoud

I believe that's what it was set to before and it wasn't smoothing the fonts as in Leopard. I'll try it again when I get home though.. thanks.

Originally Posted by Arnoud

Done, restarted, still no Leopard-like font smoothing. The menu bar actually looks fine again, but text in applications (such as the browser, text in this forum) do not and look more like ClearType (i.e. ugly font smoothing). *sigh* Hoping for a fix from Apple.

It's working for me. All my fonts look like they did in Leopard. No sub-pixel crap. You can tell that it's not using sub-pixel font smoothing by holding control and scrolling to zoom in. Black text should look monotone (no colors around the edges).

Also reverse text doesn't look bold.

[MrNibbles]

Originally Posted by Timan

Can try this in terminal, re-enabled subpixel font smoothing for me.

defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2

Thank you thank you THANK YOU!

I am a programmer, having just bought a shiny delicious new HPLP2475w, font legibility decreased tenfold. Unreadable at my preferred size, and headache inducing at best.

this has brought them back to readability again! I hope apple see the error of their ways... Thank you so much

[thecoffeeguy]

Following up on this issue (as I am having it on my new Mac Pro), does anyone have suggestion for a couple 24" monitors?

I have the Dell Ultrasharps and it gives me a headache.

I have permission to purchase a couple more for my desk.

Any recommendations?

Thanks,

Saw a NEC EA241WM-BK 24in that look ok.

Anyone know if I can find out what monitors dont have this issue on Snow Leopard?

Thanks.

TCG

[TheSpaz]

Just uncheck "Use LCD font smoothing when available"

[thecoffeeguy]

Originally Posted by TheSpaz

Just uncheck "Use LCD font smoothing when available"

Did. Seemed to help a little on m Samsung monitor, but the Dell is still fugly.

Any recommendations for a new 24" set of monitors?

Thanks.

[jgray]

Does anyone know if it's possible to adjust the font-smoothing settings from app to app? 0 looks best overall but Mail definitely looks better at 2 for some reason. Thanks!

[jgray]

http://codesnippets.joyent.com/posts/show/1191

This site discusses changing the style for Textmate. I'm curious how the command might be rewritten for other applications. Thanks.