You’re working on some text for your photo in Photoshop. Everything is going swimmingly until you see that your writing is severely pixelated! Why? You may have created this precise sort of file before without encountering this issue. Why has the text become pixelated and the main part is how to fix pixelated text in Photoshop?
In Photoshop, there are a few reasons that can produce pixelated lettering. The good news is that there are a few simple solutions.
Continue reading to learn everything there is to know about pixels, what causes the pixelated text in Photoshop, and how to fix pixelated text in Photoshop.
Related:
- Learn Four different techniques to fix the Pixelated Logo in Photoshop.
- Learn Four different techniques to fix the Pixelated Images in Photoshop.
Table of Contents
Main Concepts
What Are Pixels?
Images are created in Photoshop or other generic designs using millions of minuscule colour samples. Each little square has a colour that corresponds to the area of the image it displays. The fundamental components are referred to as “picture elements” or pixels.
Individual pixels are far too small for the eye to pick out while viewing an image in Photoshop at standard magnification, 100% or less.
Because the squares are so small when viewed at a typical distance, the colours in the image appear to merge together and create a scene similar to what we would see in the actual world.
You can see the colourful squares that make up the image if you zoom in a few 100% or even 500 %.
Then You’ll also note that each square is surrounded by a light grey edge. This is Photoshop’s pixel grid, which is useful when users need to see individual pixels.
You can turn it off if you don’t like it. Simply go to View, Show, and uncheck Pixel Grid in the menu bar.
Check How Many Pixels You Have
How do you calculate the number of pixels in your image or document? The pixel dimensions are the height and width of an image in pixels. By looking at the image size details, you can find them.
Select Image Size from the Image menu. This will open a dialogue box with the dimensions displayed. The image size can be seen in a variety of ways, including inches or percent’s, so make sure the dropdown menus are set to pixels.
You’ll be able to view how many pixels correspond to the image’s height and breadth. 5472 x 3648 pixels, for example. When you multiply the width by the height, you get 19,961,856 pixels. Individual pixels cannot be distinguished until seen at high magnification or at an exceedingly large scale.
Define Pixelation?
What if the pixels, or their jagged appearance, can be seen, especially around the curves of the letters? This is referred to as pixelation. It doesn’t appear to be very professional or appealing.
Consider the old 8-bit Mario and other video games if you’re not sure what we’re talking about. Remember how everything was outlined in a blocky manner with little detail? That’s because the number of pixels was severely limited given the technology available at the time. As a result, each square was quite huge, and the edges were quite visible.
Text in Photoshop can sometimes take on the appearance of those classic video game characters. Clearly, this isn’t great.
Continue reading to learn why this happens and how to fix it.
Working With Text in Photoshop
Using text and graphics or images together to make a powerful statement is a great approach to do it. Take a look at the statement below. The bear photograph provides a significant punch that words alone cannot convey.
Photoshop is useful for mixing text and visuals, even if it is not the best application for working with text. Photographers enjoy it since they already know how to use Photoshop and don’t have to learn a new application like Illustrator.
It’s easy to work with text in Photoshop. From the tool panel, select the Type tool, which resembles a T. Alternatively, you can open the tool by pressing the letter ‘t’ on your keyboard.
The control panel for the Type tool will appear at the top of the screen. You may change the font type, size, and apply effects like italics and bolding using dropdown menus. Also, you can select the colour using the colour picker and then pick the desired colour from the dialogue box.
You can now add the text box after you’ve picked your settings. Simply click and drag the document into place. A new text layer will appear, and you may begin inputting the text you want.
It may be easier to generate many text boxes depending on the design. This allows you to individually rearrange words and apply effects, making it simple to envisage changes.
Simply double-click on the text layer you want to work with to switch between it. Then you can adjust the formatting, colour, and size as needed.
Converting Text Into Rasters
In Photoshop, the text does not display as pixels at first. As a result, in order to employ some Photoshop effects, such as filters, you must first rasterize the text.
Rasterizing is the process of converting text into pixel format. You won’t be able to make formatting changes once the text has been rasterized, so make sure you have everything the way you want it first and avoid rasterizing if at all feasible.
If you try to do anything that involves rasterizing, a warning will appear, stating that you must first rasterize the text. You can either opt to continue, in which case the software will rasterize the text, or cancel to return to the previous screen.
Some Text Pixelation Reasons And There Solutions
Too Small Document
In Photoshop, a bigger project size gives you more pixels to work with. For example, a document with a resolution of 1200 x 1200 has double the number of pixels as one with a resolution of 600 x 600. You’ll still get a square document, but there will be enough pixels to display the font properly when you add text.’
Solution:
A short document isn’t always the issue, though. It’s also possible that you won’t be able to raise the size.
To increase the size of the document you can go to Image > Image Size and then you can increase the height and width of your document and see if text pixelation was because of the small size of the document.
Related:
- Learn Four different techniques to fix the Pixelated Logo in Photoshop.
- Learn Four different techniques to fix the Pixelated Images in Photoshop.
Magnified File
Another factor to consider is magnification. If you look at a text with too much magnification, it will become pixelated, no matter how clear and clean it is.
Solution:
The name of the document, as well as a percentage, may be found on the top tab. You should be viewing the document at 100% magnification or less to obtain a true picture of it. Anything will seem pixelated and ugly at 300% or 400%.
Just Zoom Out or Zoom In to see if magnification is the problem of pixelation.
Anti-Aliasing Technique
Anti-aliasing is a technique for smoothing down jagged edges in images. Working with fonts follows the same principle.
Solution:
Select the text tool to enable anti-aliasing. A dropdown menu labelled aa is located to the right of the font type and size dropdown menus.
The font will have the most pixelation with None chosen. Sharp, Crisp, Strong, and Smooth blur the pixelation and make it less obvious from afar. Smooth is the most common option, but you can experiment with the others to see how they impact the typeface.
Remember that if you magnify the font a lot, you can still see the pixelation and see where the anti-aliasing blurred it. When you zoom out, though, your text should have a smoother edge.
Your Font Style is itself Pixelated
Remember that certain fonts are purposefully made to appear pixelated. When making an ad for an old-style video game or something similar, a designer might choose to use this type of font.
Solution:
Even with all of the recommendations in this post, if you’ve picked a typeface that’s designed to look pixelated, you’ll have a hard job smoothing it out.
Other fonts have jagged edges, though they aren’t necessarily supposed to resemble pixelated. If you really must use a font but want to smooth it out, you can rasterize it and apply a Gaussian blur filter to it. It won’t be ideal, but it will help to reduce the jagged impact.
There’s one more thing you can try if this strategy doesn’t work for you. You can try drawing the text manually with the pen tool, which may be cumbersome depending on your setup.
However, changing the font is the simplest solution to this source of pixelation. There are a lot of them in Photoshop, so finding one that will work for you shouldn’t be too difficult.
Pixelate Effect Filter
There’s also the possibility that a pixelate effect filter was applied somewhere along the route. Because the typeface must be rasterized before the filter can work, the chances of this happening by accident are remote.
However, it is something to be aware of because it can happen.
Solution:
The pixelate filter may be found by selecting Filter from the main menu and scrolling down to Pixelate.
Photoshop Works with Rasters That’s why Pixelation Occurs
Photoshop works in pixels, and there are occasions when pixelation is unavoidable. For example, you may need to work with a size that is so small that no matter what you do, pixelation will always exist.
In that situation, it may be preferable to generate your text using separate software, such as Illustrator. Illustrator operates with vectors rather than pixels, so it doesn’t have to deal with pixelation.
You can even construct your text in Illustrator and save the file if you still need to continue on the project in Photoshop. Then, to continue working, open it in Photoshop. Bringing it into Photoshop will reintroduce some pixelation, but it’s still better than having the text generated in Photoshop.
Conclusion
That concludes the discussion that how to fix pixelated text in Photoshop? There are six possible causes for your Photoshop pixelated text issues. Fortunately, their solutions aren’t very complicated, and one of the items on this list should have resolved your issue.
If you have any questions about how to fix pixelated text in Photoshop or in general about Photoshop comment below. I’ll wish you got the solution to your problem.
Related:
- Learn Four different techniques to fix the Pixelated Logo in Photoshop.
- Learn Four different techniques to fix the Pixelated Images in Photoshop.
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