Preserved Topic: Is there a trick to making really clear tiny images? (Page 1 of 1)

Hi folks. This is my first time posting here...just stumbled across your board while searching for an active PS forum.

What's the best way to make tiny images in PS? Tiny images, as in things like a very small *NEW* or *UPDATED* buttons or the icons that sit on your desktop? approx 25 pixels wide and 15 pixels high?

Anything that I make and resize down seems to lose all it's detail, especially the text. I'm using PS 5.5

OK, one of the first things to consider is text. How to make text clear at small sizes? By default, Photoshop sets all of the text handling to have "Anti-aliasing" ON, you need it set to "off" or "none". Try something simple like arial at 10 point with no anti-aliasing, all of a sudden you have clear, readable type. There are many downloadable fonts available on the net called "monotype" fonts or "pixel" fonts that are designed to be used at 6, 7, or 8 pixels tall, and they are all readable! I use a font called "Sevenet7" on many of my designs, it's sharp and cool looking, can work as a bold type (set the leading up to 50-100 to get enough space between the letters!) Run a search, I don't have a good download spot for this, but it's available.

Now you need to do some kind of image work! This is tough, there's not much believeable sdtuff you can do at that small size. I started out back in the 70's doing smalll sprites for the gaming world (atari, that is!) and I used to draw all of my images first ON GRAPH PAPER! At that size, dots is all you have to work with, it takes some practice to see what will happen to an icon when it blurs together, but squinting is useful. I always work at 800% or bigger when doing work like this. Download some icons and take them apart, see what they look like, you'll get the hang of it.

Your pal, -doc-

eh ..just make it 25 by 25 pixels and zoom in and make your image ...I make icons but ive never made anything that small in photoshop :-

ack n/m Doc got it ...and i forgot to take the -'s out of my sig .. :-\

Welcome to the asylum! You've got it right about the difficulty of working small - I had fits coming up with an 88x31 banner for the gurusnetwork. I think you are better off working at actual size rather than sizing down. Certainly for text - forget it for clarity if you try resizing. Pictures might hold up more gracefully, but try not to re-size any more than necessary: taking a 30 MB high res file and trying to make a 3k button out of it is asking PS to a miracle.

As for text: don't use conventional text for tiny sizes. Use one meant for that purpose: a bitmap font. One that works well for me is silkscreen. Download it at:
HTTP://www.osil8.com/episodes/silkscreen/

set it at something like 9 point, no antialiasing. Clear, sharp, readable. Good luck!

I can't believe it. When I read this post there were no replies; in the time it took me to write mine, you managed to wedge in THREE!!! Sheesh, The flood-control wouldn't let be even complain.

I gotta get Dragon Speak or somethin'

fingers aren't fast enough some days

<img border=0 align=absmiddle src="http://www.ozones.com/forum/frown.gif">

Gosh you guys are FAST!!!!!!!

Thanks for the tips. I'll try antialias off and a different font.

Okay, one other thing that nobody mentioned. If you are going to work larger and then shrink down make sure you start with an image size thats width & height are multiples of the shrunken images dimensions. That way you won't get weird sampling errors that make the image look worse than it has to.