Letterhead Mockup text blurry

[jimbojon]

Hi, 

Asking here because i've tried too many things and got lost and it is driving me crazy. I am not a graphic designer and just learn while doing.

I am making a mockup for a resume for an etsy shop and the text is always not as crisp as some other shops and I just can't figure out why.

The requirements for etsy images is 2000px on the shortest size and less than 1MB, so I made a 2000x2500px (72dpi) new file with a background and a Letter sized framed smart object with a solid color and resume in .pdf media box 300dpi in it. 

Am I starting right? 

I discovered that by darkening the font and greying a bit the paper color, it improves the render, but still less good than other shops.

How can I improve the crispness? Should I use the sharpen filter? or other tricks? I've read another post about it saying increase pixel's number. I tried with 3000x2400px and it is the same. Etsy is resizing anyway. 

Well, I hope I can find a bit of help. Thank you 🙂

[Abambo]

Text is always “sharp” and “crisp” as long as it is seen at 100% (one pixel in the image is one pixel on screen). As long as the text is on a text layer and is not rendered, Photoshop will size the text if you resize the image.

If you're looking at your text with magnification, it's blurred. That's normal.

[jimbojon]

Thanks for your reply 🙂

Here it is a mockup and there is no text as you mentioned. The text is on a image (pdf) in a smart object.

When exporting, I use save for the web, keeping same size if possible or resizing down.

[Abambo]

Whatever you're doing, if it is for print, text should never be a pixel image. And that can't be done exporting to JPEG or PNG.

[@mj]

Hi @jimbojon ,

Do you have Illustrator?

It is way better suited for your task.

Let us know how you go.

mj

Mohammed Jogie |

Adobe Certified Associate |  Expert | Instructor |

Adobe Community Professional | Creative Ambassador | User Group Manager |

Member International Society of Typographic Designers | Lifetime Friend International Council of Design | Interaction Design Association Local Leader |

Member Pan Afrikan Design Institute | Ambassador Visual Arts Network South Africa | Central Executive Committee Member Printing SA |

[D Fosse]

We get this question a lot, and the answer is always the same: don't use Photoshop for text. It's the worst possible tool for it. Use Illustrator or InDesign.

Photoshop will always rasterize text to the base document resolution. In doing so, it gets blurred and pixelated to fit into the pixel grid. There's no going back from there.

Vector text, such as you get in Ai/Id, is not pixels, but math. It will be rendered at full output resolution in all circumstances. When you see crisp text on the web, it's vector, not pixels.

You can use Photoshop as long as you're aware of the limitations and take the necessary precautions. That basically means no scaling of any kind. View at 100% when creating, and view at 100% for presentation. No exceptions, no zooming or scaling, ever.

[jimbojon]

Thanks for your answers @mj, @D Fosse!

Thanks for your replies. There is no typed text on my file, just a smart object with a .pdf (vector). So, is your explanation also working for that ? 

@D Fosse, when you say no scaling, it means neither up or down? Etsy resizes down all uploaded file. So, is having a 70% size file will alter also the rendering?

What do you recommend for this type of work ? PNG or JPG?

I will give illustrator a try but Photoshop make so more sense for mockups where you need to change product designs easily, and make nice shadows and highlights. 

Thanks for your help!

[D Fosse]

It doesn't really matter if the text is in a vector smart object. Once it's output from Photoshop, it's rasterized. Smart objects are good for editing, but the output (screen, print, whatever) is always raster.

Obviously, scaling down is better than scaling up. But it will still soften either way.

For web use, there are two ways to deal with this if you want absolutely crisp text. One, do it in the web authoring application itself, or two, export vector text from Illustrator to a vector format like SVG.

Jpeg should be avoided at all costs. The compression will introduce ugly artifacts that look very disagreeable. Jpeg is for photos. PNG is better, but again, raster text will only work when seen at 100% - exactly one image pixel represented by exactly one screen pixel. Any scaling and it will look bad.

[@mj]

Hi @jimbojon,

I agrre 100% with @D Fosse.

Creatve Cloud offers a suite of tools that bring together your artwork in a symphony.

Think of it this way. Imagine trying to slice bread with a spoon. You can, but you can't complain about the rough edges then, can you?

Use Photoshop for what it does best, image editing / compositing, and Illustrator for your vector work.

Let us know how you go.

mj

Mohammed Jogie |

Adobe Certified Associate |  Expert | Instructor |

Adobe Community Professional | Creative Ambassador | User Group Manager |

Member International Society of Typographic Designers | Lifetime Friend International Council of Design | Interaction Design Association Local Leader |

Member Pan Afrikan Design Institute | Ambassador Visual Arts Network South Africa | Central Executive Committee Member Printing SA |

[jimbojon]

Thanks again @mj and @D Fosse,

It definitely gives me a better understanding. I like the bread analogy!

Photoshop has its limitations but so does etsy and they don't accept .svg.. I tried illustrator and it seems less convenient for making the shadows and the overall process. And the result in .png is quite the same as Ps. Honnestly, I am not looking for perfectly crisp text. Other people on Etsy manage to get very decent results and I wonder how do they achieve that. 

What I noted so far is trying to get the closest to screen dimension to reach 100% and to export in .png. I do notice .png makes it slightly better already.

Other than that would you recommend other best practices? or magic tricks?

If I add smart filters (levels, sharpen) or effects (pattern overlay) to the smart object containing the text file, will it alter the quality as well ? 

Many thanks, have a good sunday!

[Nancy OShea]

A Resume/CV is a print document that should be crafted with desktop publishing software like MS Word, Google Docs or InDesign. 

Etsy has Resume Templates for Google Docs and other suitable software that you can use.

Optionally, you can export your Resume to PDF for viewing in Acrobat or free Acrobat Reader. 

JPG image is inappropriate for this purpose.  Do not use Photoshop to create your Resume.   Use Photoshop for pixel-based web graphics and product images only.

[jimbojon]

Thanks @Nancy OShea but I am talking here about Mockups to display cv, like the one you can see on the page you redirected me to. Of course, the resume are made with typing tools. Sorry if it was not clear..

[Nancy OShea]

Low resolution thumbnails will never be crystal clear.  It's the nature of the beast.