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marcbjango
marcbjango
Known Participant
March 31, 2011
Under Review

P: Add options for softer anti-aliasing for Vector Masks/Shape Layers

  • March 31, 2011
  • 49 replies
  • 2063 views

*** If this is important to you, please comment below. ***

Vector Masks in Photoshop have sharper anti-aliasing than shapes created other ways. Quite often, I find that the results are too sharp. This is especially true for very small shapes, making it an issue for icon creation.

It’s interesting to note that vector Smart Objects that have been pasted from Illustrator have vastly different anti-aliasing to Shape Layers that have been pasted from Illustrator. The Smart Objects are far heavier and the anti-aliasing seems posterized.

I don’t really have a solution for this, except a suggestion that the Shape Layer/Vector Mask rendering is very close to ideal for me, but I’d prefer slightly softer anti-aliasing. I don’t know how this could be implemented while keeping legacy support. I guess there’s three ways it could be done: A global change or preference, where all documents get the new rendering (breaking legacy rendering), a per document setting or a per object/layer setting. The first breaks compatibility, the second and third add UI and file bloat.

Steps to Reproduce — Create a circular marquee selection at a smallish size, say 9x9 pixels and fill it with white. Create a pixel snapped vector circle that’s the exact same size (you may have to use the rounded rectangle tool with a large radius and Snap To Pixel turned on). Compare the results—the marquee selection bitmap layer is smoother.

Workaround — None. Only really crazy, silly stuff that I’m not usually willing to do because it removes editability.


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If you'd like to see the original files, grab them here: antialiastest-597642.zip

View an animated comparison between the various methods.

*** If this is important to you, please comment below. ***

    49 replies

    Show previous replies
    marcbjango
    marcbjangoAuthor
    Known Participant
    April 5, 2011
    Command-shift-X is great for clear layer style, too.
    F
    FeedbackCommunityMember
    Inspiring
    April 3, 2011
    Nice & handy key combos. It would be awesome if that showed up in a future version of Photoshop. Workflow speed is very important.
    marcbjango
    marcbjangoAuthor
    Known Participant
    April 3, 2011
    Being part of the Layer Styles and therefore easily copied is definitely a huge positive. I have command-shift-C and command-shift-V assigned to copying and pasting Layer Styles and I could see this as a huge plus if the vector anti-aliasing softness was included.
    F
    FeedbackCommunityMember
    Inspiring
    April 3, 2011
    I would personally like to see this in Blending Options, so it can be applied to multiple layers via style copying. ideally a slider with anti-alias range (maybe 1-5 pixels as Marc suggested), as word descriptions (crisp, strong, smooth...etc) speak to me less clearly than quantizing the softness. Certain items may benefit from softer anti-alias, while others sharper.

    I'm assuming that this would only work for vector objects, so if it could be applied as a layer style, you could modify more than one text layer at a time without having to edit each individually, which would save time in workflow, and I'm always up for that.

    Just my 2 cents.
    F
    FeedbackCommunityMember
    Inspiring
    April 3, 2011
    I was thinking of making it a new Layer Style item; something like "Custom Anti-aliasing", so you could maintain existing behaviour as the default (for backwards compatibility), then use the new Layer Style to indicate that you would like to exercise fine-grained control over anti-aliasing, which you could toggle on and off like any other Layer Style.

    This approach, however, is problematic when it comes to Type layers, because it conflics with the existing anti-aliasing control in the Options Bar. Perhaps this new Layer Style would be disabled for Type layers?
    marcbjango
    marcbjangoAuthor
    Known Participant
    April 3, 2011
    I'd be up for numeric, slider or "modes". Anything that gives us softer antialiasing is good in my books. I guess the question is how many steps do you think we need? At a guess I'd say 3 would be good, 5 great. And maybe the best way to implement that is a slider.

    Thoughts?
    marcbjango
    marcbjangoAuthor
    Known Participant
    April 3, 2011
    The only issue with using the Blending Options (or anything under Layer Styles) is that they're identical for vector layers, bitmap layers, type layers and Smart Objects.

    However, I agree that putting it in the Options bar would mean allocating it to a tool, which doesn't make too much sense. As far as I can see, the options bar doesn't change dependent on layer type either.

    Or were you talking about it being a new Layer Style item (ie. under Blending Mode)?
    J
    J453
    Legend
    April 2, 2011
    I agree. The better case a user makes for their idea the more likely other customers and developers on the product teams will see value in the idea.
    F
    FeedbackCommunityMember
    Inspiring
    April 2, 2011
    I can see benefits to both approaches, however I am leaning towards grouping it with Layer Styles for a couple of reasons. Firstly, by putting the anti-aliasing controls in the Options Bar, I think there could be confusion over which tool you need to have currently selected (which tool would you allocate?). Secondly, I don't think it is something that you would need to change very often, so "concealing" it in the Layer Styles dialog is not necessarily a problem. Lastly, by making it a Layer Style, you have more UI space to allocate for parameters, such as opacity, sharpness, spread, maybe even a "Use Global" checkbox.
    N
    nsky777
    Participant
    April 2, 2011
    Agreed. Slider or numeric control would be even better. But not in the layer style dialogue (too deep I think) but in tool options (like feather for marquee tool)
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