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Re: Optimising output for screen.


From: Phil Holmes
Subject: Re: Optimising output for screen.
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 16:42:38 +0100

----- Original Message ----- From: "Phil Burfitt" <address@hidden>
To: "Trevor Daniels" <address@hidden>
Cc: <address@hidden>
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 3:49 PM
Subject: Re: Optimising output for screen.


Trevor, I've downloaded a number of PDF viewers for Windows and taken screen
snapshots at 96dpi on Vista of each at 100% scaling (PNG attachment).
Problems occur in all of them as to be expected as Lilyponds output is
optimised for printer and will have a resolution of probably at least
300dpi. The most common problem seen in these viewers is the rendering of
staves that when scaled down do not fall exactly on a pixel. Adobe doesn't
seem to anti-alias raster images, but it's font rendering is a lot sharper.
Evince does the best overall job IMO.

Phil.

It's my understanding (correct me if I'm wrong, somebody) that LilyPond is optimised neither for screen or print - it outputs as PDF, and so the quality of the image seen depends on the quality of the program that interprets the PDF. LilyPond is essentially simply telling the PDF viewer/printer "draw a line from here to here". It's then down to the viewer to decide how to realise that on the screen. Clearly, with screen resolutions of 96 dpi and most printers of at least 600 dpi (my laser prints 1200 x 600) then the viewer has a much better chance of placing the lines consistently on a printer. I've had a play with Adobe 8 on my Vista machine and shown how it changes how it renders lines as its own zoom is increased. See the attached - this is the same pair of bar lines, taken from different systems on a score, viewed in Adobe at 4 resolutions, with each image scaled up in PhotoShop so it appears the same size.

At 100% it does a fairly poor job - overlapping the staves upwards once and downwards once, with varying size lines and varying stave spacing. At 200% the lines are better but there's still overlap. At 400% the lines vary again but the bar lines are good. Even at 800% the line spacing is inconsistent, although it looks perfectly good.

So I would conclude - if you need excellent screen display, you'll either need a carefully written PDF viewer, or a screen with a resolution of around 1000 dpi.

--
Phil Holmes

Attachment: BarLines.png
Description: PNG image


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