misc_smalltext.shtml

Lemur zaprasza

Working
with Small Text

Sometimes
we need to get that text really small to fit right on an image or
web button. Most fonts look horrible or hardly readable when sized
down really low. I tend to like that "grungy" look
on some of my web buttons, but there's times we want it
really clean and readable. Well that's what were going to do here.
This is one way to clean up small text.

Please make sure you know Photoshop well or
other pixel base program before you do this, as I will have to skip some details because
it would just take to long other wise.

Getting Prepared

For this lesson, we're going to use the font-
Arial, BOLD,
its a really nice Sans Serif font and looks really good at smaller
points (Arial Black looks good too). We will also work on a 88 x 31
button. I will be using part of a button I made for NAPP (National
Association of Photoshop Professionals), It's a really long name so it
was quite a challenge for me. I had to abbreviate some words but it all
fit and was readable at the end.

Make a new image: 88 Wide by 31 High. Lets fill the background
with black for now.

Use the type tool and make some small text on the button. You can write the
same thing I did if you like. In Photoshop 5 You will need to render your Type layer in
order to edit it. You should make a duplicate of the non-rendered type just incase you
mess up.

My text looks pretty good, but those "P's" and period's don't look
very sharp to me, they look blurred and jagged, I really don't want that.

Ok let's Zoom-in on a word, I zoomed in on "Pros". It looks like I could
remove some pixels around in some areas, and brighten up some in others.

First let's make a New View.
In Photoshop Go to View>New View. By doing this, we can
see the same image at the normal size while we work on the zoomed in version. A New View
is not a new file or image, its the same image your working on. When you make
changes to the zoomed in version, you will see your New View update as well, This way we
can see if it looks right.

Now its obvious that there are many un-wanted pixels now that we have zoomed in
for a closer look.

I have removed and darkened the pixels inside the "P" , "o". and have
balanced the tops and bottoms of the letters a bit. I Have also played with the whole word
in general. If you look in my New View, you will see the improvements on the
"P's" and my "O's", don't forget about the period that I just
made 2 white pixels side by side, that gave me a nice result.

I continued through all the letters until I
was happy and had much clearer, cleaner Text.

Finished

My Type is now ready to be placed in
my final animation and
be delivered to the client.