Heads Up - Cleartype tuner

  • Thread starter Thread starter Richard Urban
  • Start date Start date
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Richard Urban

I just found that the cleartype tuner for Windows XP
(available here: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePowerToy.mspx)
works just fine with Vista RTM.

It will place a shortcut in your control panel, just as in Windows XP. It
helps clear up the text in these newsgroups.


--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Richard

I may give it another try.. was not overly impressed first time around, but
it might just improve the look of Windows Mail..
 
Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User said:
Richard

I may give it another try.. was not overly impressed first time around,
but it might just improve the look of Windows Mail..
Click to expand...



Windows Mail (top pane) looks terrible. With the cleartype tuner was able to
clean it up quite a bit. I had to try 5-6 different settings before I found
one that looks good.

BTW: Don't necessarily choose that which looks best in the tuner. I chose
one that decidedly did not look good and got a fine result in Windows Mail.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User said:
Richard

I may give it another try.. was not overly impressed first time around,
but it might just improve the look of Windows Mail..
Click to expand...

Want to borrow my welding helmit? Looks good thru it :-)
 
Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User said:
Richard

A quick update.. I went to this website..

http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx

Set it up from there.. a real improvement over my first attempt..
Click to expand...



I tried that one first Mike. I wasn't happy with the somewhat limited
choices. The installed version gives you 2 X 6 choices.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
You mean the one that says "Please note that the online tuner does not
currently work with Windows Vista"?

Now, why MS didn't see fit to integrate the CT tuner program into some
logical place in Vista is quite puzzling.
 
Turn Cleartype off.
That will resolve the top pane text problem.
I have a CRT monitor and on a CRT Cleartype just makes ALL text look ugly
 
Except that it does work with Vista.. this is the best that I have had my
screen looking ever since I first ran IE7..
 
Nero said:
Turn Cleartype off.
That will resolve the top pane text problem.
I have a CRT monitor and on a CRT Cleartype just makes ALL text look ugly
Click to expand...


Not always true. Some CRT monitors benefit from Clear Type. I happen to
have one.
 
Synapse Syndrome said:
As ClearType is reported to have been improved in Vista, I don't think
that tuner is going to work very well.

ss.
Click to expand...



Trust me, you can make a big difference with the tuner. It works fine for
cleaning up the red halo between double ll's for instance.


--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
Richard Urban said:
Trust me, you can make a big difference with the tuner. It works
fine for cleaning up the red halo between double ll's for instance.
Click to expand...


What red halo? I have very crisp text on my screen.

:-)

I have an LCD monitor, and Vista looks great out of the box, but only
if I run the monitor at its native resolution. Anything else, and the
simulated display becomes "blurry" with colour shifts. LCD screens
should ALWAYS be used in their native resolution, even if the text is
too small. With small text, you can adjust the font or DPI settings to
compensate, and your text should still be crisp and comfortable to
read.

Also, cleartype generally should not be used with CRT monitors. It
works best with LCD monitors and laptops.
 
Also, cleartype generally should not be used with CRT monitors. It works
best with LCD monitors and laptops.
Click to expand...

This was the school of thought because of how and why ClearType specifically
subpixels based on how an LCD is designed. However, even on CRTs or other
display types, ClearType is a visual improvement.

ClearType does subpixel on LCDs, but what it does to acheive this is a smart
version of 'Color Anti-aliasing'.

So even on a non-LCD display by using non B&W/Gray colors to fill in the
jagged areas, it goes further than simple 'GrayScale' based anti-aliasing
due to how the human brain perceives the pixels.

So even though ClearType will give a 'better' look on an LCD display, there
is NO reason not to run it on most normal displays, unless you are from the
old school and the 'blur' of anti-aliasing annoys you.

Also to note, on CRTs pixels are often not as crisp or 'defined' as they are
on an LCD, so the need for anti-aliasing is less needed as the text tends to
blur a bit anyway due to the analog nature of how a CRT works. This is why
some people don't see an improvement from ClearType, as they don't have the
eyesight for the resolution they are already running on the CRT or the CRT
is being pushed and the pixels are not very crisp to begin with.

With all that said, ClearType DOES WORK on non-LCD displays, so encourage
all users to leave ClearType on unless it does annoy them.

TheNetAvenger
 
Bill said:
What red halo? I have very crisp text on my screen.

:-)

I have an LCD monitor, and Vista looks great out of the box, but only if I
run the monitor at its native resolution. Anything else, and the simulated
display becomes "blurry" with colour shifts. LCD screens should ALWAYS be
used in their native resolution, even if the text is too small. With small
text, you can adjust the font or DPI settings to compensate, and your text
should still be crisp and comfortable to read.

Also, cleartype generally should not be used with CRT monitors. It works
best with LCD monitors and laptops.
Click to expand...



So you don't experience it. My LCD monitor does, and clear type solves the
problem.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
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