Png export quality

**grapeshot** · 14 June 2012, 10:59 AM

Hi all. First post here, though I've been using Xara professionally for year!

I'm working on some iPad 3 development and I'm really struggling to achieve the crispness that the retina display demands. I'm exporting PNG files from pure vector images, at the correct resolution, and playing with the dpi settings makes little difference. The image is not as sharp as it should be, especially with text. Annoyingly, Illustrator is able to export very crisp PNG images.

Is this a Xara issue of am I missing something obvious?

Thanks in advance for any help.

**steve.ledger** · 14 June 2012, 11:27 AM

Are you referring to sharp edges?
Perhaps your images are not whole pixles and/or not on whole integer grid lines?

Try it and see if it helps

**gwpriester** · 14 June 2012, 12:32 PM

Welcome to TalkGraphics

What resolution are you working to? And what is the size of your screen that you are exporting to?

A few years ago, I did three iPad apps using InDesign and Adobe Digital Publishing Suite. The screen resolution on the iPad 1 is not as high as the retina display but we were very happy with the results. All images were created in and exported from Extreme 6 and Designer Pro 7 as 24-bit PNG files. You can see the apps here http://www.eyeball-3d.com/

**grapeshot** · 14 June 2012, 01:44 PM

Originally Posted by sledger

Are you referring to sharp edges?
Perhaps your images are not whole pixles and/or not on whole integer grid lines?

Try it and see if it helps

That looks like it could be the issue. Small text in particular lacks sharpness. It's not something I've taken into account before. Is it a case of setting up a 1 to1 pixel grid and snapping the shapes to it?

**gwpriester** · 14 June 2012, 02:02 PM

What sledger is saying will not help with text.

All bitmap text is anti-aliased. Intermediate pixels are created to produce the illusion of crisp, sharp text. But if you blow the text up large, you can see the anti-aliasing. This is what you are seeing an interpreting as soft.

The text in this screen looks sharp on my monitor. But magnified you can see the alti-aliasing.

**Soquili** · 14 June 2012, 02:04 PM

Setting your grid and ruler settings to pixels and snap to grid should work.

**grapeshot** · 14 June 2012, 03:12 PM

Right, that seems to have got me heading in the right direction. I'll let you know how I get on.

Thanks to all of you for your advice!

**mwenz** · 14 June 2012, 03:33 PM

fwiw, I find that beginning with File | New | Blank Photo for all pixel-dimensioned graphics aids in the best results. However, small text can be a problem at times.

Take care, Mike

**StevenWWinters** · 14 June 2012, 05:31 PM

See discussion on small text here: http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...-anti-aliasing

"Yes the Photoshop 'none', uses fully hinted truetype monochrome rendering - and suffers from the size / spacing inaccuracies - e.g. that 12pt text is a LOT larger than, like 20 or 30% larger, than the 11pt text which is obviously wrong. It has to be 'one whole' pixel larger in all directions.

But yes it's useful feature and something we can look at for future versions. For now I'd recommend simply using pixel fonts to get that same effect." - Charles Moir

Perhaps a Dear Xara request is in order...

**grapeshot** · 14 June 2012, 10:17 PM

That's a great link. Fascinating!

This link, taken from the article, seems to answer my original question:

http://www.xara.com/news/july06/tutorial.asp

My issue is not with the iPad 2 resolution ( the images look great). The problem arises when the resolution is doubled for retina displays. That's when the crispness is lost.

I'll report back tomorrow with the results...