[ft] Regression in rendering quality with subpixel antialiasing

[Bernd Schubert]

Hi,

this is just a forward and summary of Debian Bug #367593
(http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=367593).

Short description:
After updating from freetype-2.1.10 to freetype-2.2.1 the font metrics
change, but more importantly the antialiased fonts become extremely blurry.
For most applications this can be workarounded by setting 'hintfull' as
hintstyle, but doesn't work for all applications, such as OpenOffice.

This bug already exits for sometime (I'm using a recompiled 2.1.10 at home
as workaround), but there doesn't seem to be a real solution. I tested a
2.2.1 without any patches, with patches from Ubuntu Edgy, with patches from
Opensuse - without any success, the fonts just stay blurry until switching
back to 2.1.10.

I also tested the levels of subpixel hinting - depending on the level, the
fonts are either extremly blurry or blurry + wrong colour. It is really
funny if a black letter is not printed black on the screen, but becomes 
redish. The only exception is full subpixel hinting, which works
for most applications. But if only full subpixel hinting gives
satisfactorily results, why is there an option for it? 

IMHO its also interesting that I so far didn't find any reports from other
distributions.

Any idea how to fix this problem or how to debug it?


Thanks,
Bernd


-- 
Bernd Schubert
PCI / Theoretische Chemie
Universität Heidelberg
INF 229
69120 Heidelberg