Re: Fonts looking washed out with newer freetype versions

Having pixel-peeped a lot of freetype text, the differences you are seeing look very similar to that between a 5-tap beveled filter (current default), and light or no filtering.

The lower "orange/blue" is what I would expect, and is pleasant to look at. The upper "yellow" is a harsher rendering. So perhaps you have a personal preference for lighter or no-filtering which can easily be changed in your font config.
My general opinion, is that FreeType 2.10 with the default filter gives a perfectly balanced rendering on a range of machines I run it on. In fact I am amazed they managed to tune it so nicely.
On Mar 15 2021, at 11:42 am, Peter <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> Am 09.03.21 um 11:55 schrieb Werner LEMBERG:
> >
> >> Here are two more images that contrast the rendering output of
> >> FreeType 2.6.1 with that of a patched version of FreeType 2.10.1
> >> using the old default LCD filter. The filter definitely has a
> >> conceivable impact that brings the output closer to that of FreeType
> >> 2.6.1. But there are still differences especially concerning the
> >> saturation of the outer blue shades of the glyphs (some of which I
> >> have marked).
> >
> > Have you actually played around with the `ftview` tool? Right now,
> > this is the only recommendation I can give to exactly find out what's
> > going on...
> >
> >
> > Werner
> >
> Yes, I did. I tried to reproduce the output of version 2.6.1 of the
> 'ftview' demo tool with version 2.10.1. But even with the exact same
> settings (hinting, gamma, LCD filter etc.) the output that version
> 2.10.1 produces differs from that of version 2.6.1.
>
> The fonts rendered with version 2.6.1 are darker and their stems
> thicker. I'm not sure how to describe this properly, but I also perceive
> the fonts rendered with version 2.6.1 as sharper than their counterparts
> rendered with version 2.10.1.
>
> I have attached several images and comparisons of the respective outputs
> that hopefully make this difference apparent. The text strings in the
> comparison images are taken from the two 'ftview' outputs. The upper
> string is in each case taken from the output of version 2.6.1 of the
> 'ftview' demo tool and the lower one from version 2.10.1.
>