font appears dilated after upgrade to ImageJ 1.53d and Mac OS Catalina

[jvander]

After upgrading to ImageJ 1.53d AND from High Sierra to Catalina, I found a difference in how SansSerif font displays.  Specifically I choose:

Font: SansSerif
Style: Plain
Color black
Size 12
uncheck antialias

Then I create text in an 8 bit image window.

Prior to the two upgrades, the text appeared as nice thin and readable.  Straight line segments in a letter are a single pixel wide.

After the upgrades, the text appears dilated and unreadable. It looks like it is trying to be bold as everything is two pixels wide.   But if I change to bold it is even more dilated.

Might this be something odd with ImageJ 1.53d or something unique to Catalina?

I tried Arial and Helvetica and got the same frustrating appearance.

Suggestions are most welcome, and yes, I realize I should not have done both upgrades at the same time!  :)

thanks

Joe Vandergracht

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[jvander]

Updating my entry from earlier today:

I did not realize how easy is was to downgrade ImageJ.  I just downgraded to 1.52 and the font problem remains.  So I suspect it has to do with Catalina but could it be something else?

Note that this is not just a remembered perception.  I have an automated process for annotating and examples from a week ago and more all display very readable 12 point SansSerif  (with anti-aliasing off).  But now it looks horrible.

Can someone just try creating some 12 point Sans Serif text on an 8 bit image and let me know if it is easily legible.  I am using the word "apple" as example text and the 'l' and 'e' are merged together and the e is all filled in.

If you do try it and report your success (or failure) please note your platform and OS.

thanks much

Joe Vandergracht

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[Michael Schmid]

Hi Joe,

no  problem with Linux (Ubuntu 16.04) and a recent daily build:
ImageJ 1.53e15; Java 1.8.0_112 [64-bit]; Linux 4.4.0-187-generic.
See the screenshot.

So I suspect a MacOS Catalina issue. If you search the internet for
"Catalina font problem" you will find quite a few results.

Michael
________________________________________________________________
On 09.09.20 20:14, Joe Vandergracht wrote:

> Updating my entry from earlier today:
>
> I did not realize how easy is was to downgrade ImageJ.  I just downgraded to 1.52 and the font problem remains.  So I suspect it has to do with Catalina but could it be something else?
>
> Note that this is not just a remembered perception.  I have an automated process for annotating and examples from a week ago and more all display very readable 12 point SansSerif  (with anti-aliasing off).  But now it looks horrible.
>
> Can someone just try creating some 12 point Sans Serif text on an 8 bit image and let me know if it is easily legible.  I am using the word "apple" as example text and the 'l' and 'e' are merged together and the e is all filled in.
>
> If you do try it and report your success (or failure) please note your platform and OS.
>
> thanks much
>
> Joe Vandergracht

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[jvander]

Michael,

Thanks for checking.  I was also able to check on a Windows machine and an
older Mac running 10.6 and the font displays just fine.

I should point out that I ultimately have to have a binary image so that is
why I do not choose anti-aliased.

I came up with a workaround.  I choose anti-aliased and it looks fine, but
has grey pixels.  So I then apply an auto threshold.  I played around with
different "methods" and found that "default" and "minimum" give best
results.  It does not look as good as "the good old days prior to Catalina"
but it is legible.

So I agree that there are indeed lots of posts about font problems on
Catalina.  I am not experiencing fonts issues in other programs but then
again, I am not a font fanatic so I might be missing subtle problems that
are magnified when sampling so sparsely with 12 point font in an ImageJ
image window.  

I don't know how ImageJ implements anti-aliasing and non anti-aliasing.  If
it is similar to my workaround (anti-aliasing followed by thesholding) I
wonder if thresholding has gone a bit off in Catalina?  I don't really have
a way of testing that.  But odds are that Michael is right and it is
Catalina font issues.

Joe Vandergracht


Hi Joe,

no  problem with Linux (Ubuntu 16.04) and a recent daily build:
ImageJ 1.53e15; Java 1.8.0_112 [64-bit]; Linux 4.4.0-187-generic.
See the screenshot.

So I suspect a MacOS Catalina issue. If you search the internet for
"Catalina font problem" you will find quite a few results.

Michael




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