Re: [ft] Hinting

[Werner LEMBERG]

> ... in the tutorial I found, that
> FT_Render_Glyph() gives an anti-aliased result...

If you select the corresponding flag(s), yes.

> I also found no keyword with "ALIAS" in
> http://www.freetype.org/freetype2/docs/reference/ft2-index.html
> 
> So... is AA automatic?

>From the description of FT_RENDER_MODE_NORMAL:

  This is the default render mode; it corresponds to 8-bit
  anti-aliased bitmaps, using 256 levels of opacity.

> I BTW used FT_RENDER_MODE_MONO in my call to FT_Render_Glyph().

The description says it uses 1-bit bitmaps -- values can be either 0
or 1.  This can't be anti-aliased, obviously.

Are you probably confusing anti-aliasing with hinting?

> Would you also assume bad quality, when using FT_RENDER_MODE_MONO as
> option?

If you use a well-hinted screen font (say, tahoma), together with the
appropriate hinter, you will always get excellent results.  Otherwise,
it can look terrible.  Whatever you plan to do, I suggest that you
experiment with ftview (or ftdiff), comparing the different hinting
and rendering modes.

> Possibly a grayscale-rendering would help also in jpeg, because the
> contrast is not that high?!

I can't help with the process of overlaying the font on a graphics
image.


    Werner