Pixelation Sucks ;.;

Hello everyone,

So, I am working on the logo for my company's website. Heres my prob. at 100% this image is fine, but every time I resize (smaller) I end up with pixelation / fuzz on a couple letters (Particularly the P).

This is my original, click it because otherwise the "dot" is pixelated.

http://img238.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tpslogoso5.jpg

This is my resize:

http://img132.imageshack.us/my.php?image=tpslogo540ib4.jpg

How can I go about sharpening up the smaller images so the text entities look as good as the big image? Is there some trick to resizing that I dont know? I feel stupid asking about this it seems like I know how already and just can't remember.

Thanks in advance.
F

Always resize at small amounts (10%max)
Do a sharp once in a while.
If you do your work with shapes, resizing look always good.
In your design looks perfect for shape work.
Here's an "A" traced and in shape. I can resize it without any mad pixels.



Good luck

Thank you very much :> I thoulght it might be something like that. Sometimes its best to get a second opinion when youre tired. I'll be sure to use your suggestions, and maybe Ill come back when I'm done to show yall.

Thanks again
F

Forgive the double post, but I've run into a snag. I would liKe to use the shape function, but it seems to be primarily text based. I created this image by drafting in a cad program, englarging, then copy/paste into Photoshop. The "dot" is actualy a hand drafted entity with a number of fine lines. As such the distance between the text entities and the dot is unchangable, and I have to paste it over at a very large size for the lines to show up in my original. The larger "original" that I have it well above font size 72, so I cant just type it up in ps without messing up the proportinate distance between the text and the "dot".

I tried typing and using scale to resize the text to match the existing, but this didnt work out so well.

Is there a way to convert a selection to a shape ( ie select my text using select by color range or the magic wand, then convert to a shape) or would I have to manually set anchor points like with the polygonal lasso?

The office wont give me too many more hours to work on this, but its really important to me that it looks crisp & clean.

I did investigate the sharpen filters, but because my text is white its difficult for me to see if the edges have changed much (white on checker background is not benificial in this case.) Looking at my original (#1 in my first post) it seems like the text is kinda pixelated to begin with....I dont know..... really, I need an opinions as well as advice. I want it to look professional but am having difficulties because of the shape of the Chelsea Studio Font.

Keep in mind here that my end result images will be a fraction of the size of the original. My original is about 1240 pixels wide, while my larger "final" will be about 540 wide. Am I being too nitpicky here? Will it even look pixelated if I sharpen and reduce by 10% until I get it down to the smaller size?


Thanks for the feedback.
F

Whoa, that is one long post for one little problem, haha.

Alright, First of all, your larger text in the first link looks crappy cause when you wrote it down in photoshop, you selected "none" for the anti-aliasing. You should never select "none" except for some special pixel fonts, but it ain't the case. So select "sharp" instead or "crisp".

Now you only have to take your original image, resize it the way you want and apply the shapening filter (Filter >> Sharpen >> Unsharp Mask) and set the amount that best fits your need (don't exagerate though).

Now make sure that your text isn't a text layer anymore, cause you cannot aply the filter on a text layer. For that, just select the layer you got your text on, right click on it and select "rasterize type".

You should be good to go now.


NB: If you really want to be picky, you can do what I told you in many many steps (I mean resizing a bit, sharpen a bit, then resize a bit more, etc. until you got the size you want, but I doubt it to be necessary).


I hope it helped.

[QUOTE=OnCleSAm]Whoa, that is one long post for one little problem, haha.

Alright, First of all, your larger text in the first link looks crappy cause when you wrote it down in photoshop, you selected "none" for the anti-aliasing. You should never select "none" except for some special pixel fonts, but it ain't the case. So select "sharp" instead or "crisp".


Now you only have to take your original image, resize it the way you want and apply the shapening filter (Filter >> Sharpen >> Unsharp Mask) and set the amount that best fits your need (don't exagerate though).

Now make sure that your text isn't a text layer anymore, cause you cannot aply the filter on a text layer. For that, just select the layer you got your text on, right click on it and select "rasterize type".

You should be good to go now.


NB: If you really want to be picky, you can do what I told you in many many steps (I mean resizing a bit, sharpen a bit, then resize a bit more, etc. until you got the size you want, but I doubt it to be necessary).


I hope it helped.[/QUOTE]

I didnt make the text in Photoshop. This image was drafted in DataCad then copied to clipboard then pasted into a new file in PS. There are no "text" layers to this image, I just seperated the diffrent parts of it to layers (white text layer, background layer, layer for the "dot") by selecting and doing "layer via cut". I cant put actual text layers over it it because they wont resize to match my original text. Xd I had to make it this way because the logo gets inserted into ALL of our residential plans.

;.; It seeems like my best bet is to repeatedly resize/sharpen, I was just hoping that there would be a simpler/less time consuming way to do it.


THANK YOU for all the help & feedback.

F

Let me in here a minute...

Fuu, what file type choises do you have to save out of DATACAD?

are Cad programs not vector based?

I guess what I'm saying is can you save the file as an eps?

On with the show:

You said you seperated the stuff to seperate layers by selecting and using "layer via cut". I would suggest if Copy/paste is the only way to get the image to photoshop to actually copy and paste the different components seperatly, as your selection in photoshop is probably where the pixelation came from.

You follow me? In your Cad proggy kill the background (you can recreate that painlessly in photoshop) and copy/paste the text and dot seperately to seperate layers.

Yes, cad is vector based. As for saving, I can export it as dwg, dxf, txt & o2c.
I did attempt your suggestion, however the problem lies in the interpretaion between Datacad & Photoshop. I have to copy everything over at a huuuuuge size in order to (sort of) preserve the sharpness of the edges on the text. I did try to do your suggestion, but it still sisnt coming out as nice as Id like. Plus, I cant type it out because Datacad interprets the font diffrently than PS (the lines are thicker & the entities shorter) and the image wont look the same as the one on our plans. HUrrrrrrr.

Am I going to just have to sharpen/reduce by %10 to get it small & sharp enough? I dont really have the time to start over from scratch, but if theres somethig beyond the reduce/sharpen that I can do with what I already have I'd like to know. Hurr. Maybe this is something Im going to have to take on in my free time.


Thanks again for the help.
F

For my money, Uniko has put his finger on the answer to this one: Shape layers should give you what you want, but it will involve a bit of work! (If you have the time, that is). Use the larger image as a template and trace over the text with the pen tool set to 'shape layers'. This will give you vector art to work with. As Uniko says, the style of lettering is ideal for this. Once this is done, you can scale to any size without loss of sharpness. Of course, the key issue is whether you have time! Don't forget, once you have the text saved as vectors, any future logos of any size will be a breeze!

Best of luck.

[QUOTE=Wano]For my money, Uniko has put his finger on the answer to this one:[/QUOTE]


I would agree if there isn't an easier work around, but since this is a vector program were dealing with I just can't bring myself to think there isn't an easier way.

turns out there is...
http://www.cadtutor.net/acad/acad2ki/atop/atop.html