Images of fonts in use Instagram size

A central location highlighting fonts created with FontCreator and/or Scanahand. Post information about your fonts here.
Post Reply
William
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 2038
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Worcestershire, England
Contact:

Images of fonts in use Instagram size

Post by William »

Images of fonts in use Instagram size

This is a forum thread for images of fonts in use where the images are the 512 pixel by 512 pixel size of an Instagram.
Sonnet_to_a_Renaissance_Lady_font_use_example.png
Sonnet_to_a_Renaissance_Lady_font_use_example.png (23.39 KiB) Viewed 9450 times
The image above was produced using a square quickshape (512 pixels by 512 pixels) and a square text frame (492 pixels by 492 pixels) centred upon it in Serif PagePlus X6 then trimmed to size horizontally at the right and the colours of the few pixels near the edges adjusted using Microsoft Paint. The type is at 60 point.

Please click on the image so as to display it in full.

Please note the use of three versions of lowercase g and the use of two ligatures and one accented character, the text being edited so as to provide text to as to allow these items to be included in the display.

William Overington

22 May 2014
Alfred
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 1030
Joined: Thu Apr 18, 2013 8:08 am

Re: Images of fonts in use Instagram size

Post by Alfred »

William wrote:The image above was produced using a square quickshape (512 pixels by 512 pixels) and a square text frame (492 pixels by 492 pixels) centred upon it in Serif PagePlus X6 then trimmed to size horizontally at the right and the colours of the few pixels near the edges adjusted using Microsoft Paint.
Was there a particular reason why you used a QuickShape instead of applying a suitable line, fill and margins to the text frame? Why did the colours need adjusting near the edges, and why did this require an external program?
FC14 Pro (Help) + MT11.0 Pro (Help) • Windows 10
William
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 2038
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Worcestershire, England
Contact:

Re: Images of fonts in use Instagram size

Post by William »

Alfred wrote:Was there a particular reason why you used a QuickShape instead of applying a suitable line, fill and margins to the text frame?
Well, firstly, I am not expert at using Serif PagePlus: I have learned it as I have gone along in order to produce various results, such as a pdf, a png or a demonstration of my OpenType fonts performing.

So, I can say why I used a quickshape. As to the "instead of" part, it did not occur to me to do it that way and I did not realize that I could. I hope to try that method later now that you have mentioned it.

I used a quickshape as I am used to a text frame containing black text with a transparent background. So I simulated a piece of yellow paper to print it on.

Maybe there is a better way to achieve the result.
Alfred wrote:Why did the colours need adjusting near the edges, and why did this require an external program?
Well, I grouped the text frame and the quickshape prior to exporting the image as a png file.

Although the highlighted are for exporting the object was 512 pixels by 512 pixels, the dialogue panel offered 535 pixels wide by 512 pixels high.

Upon inspection in Paint, there was a white pale at the right side of the image, 23 pixels wide. So I adjusted the width within Paint to 512 pixels.

The overall effect was black lettering upon the yellow background.

So, as a check, I filled the background as red from somewhere near the middle of the surrounding area. This revealed a few lines of slightly different yellow near the edges. So I filled them red so that the whole of the area surrounding the lettering was red.

I then used the colour picker tool within Paint to pick the colour from the centre of the capital O and then I filled the area surrounding the lettering with that picked colour.

I then saved the image. That is the image in the first post in this forum thread.

I have thought of asking why the white pale is in the image in the Serif forum, though I am thinking of trying to produce a similar image using Arial rather than one of my own fonts, just in case the problem does not occur with Arial. The text in the text frame was justified with auto-hyphenation turned off. I did choose, and edit, the text so as to try to produce a good result.

As for using Paint, well, I learned Paint thoroughly during the late 1990s and find that it is good for images at a pixel level.

I do not know how I could have resolved the problem using only Serif software. Maybe it can be done, maybe very straightforwardly, it is just that I do not, at the present time, know whether it can be done and, if it can, exactly how one would do it.

I am interested in learning.

William
William
Top Typographer
Top Typographer
Posts: 2038
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 6:41 pm
Location: Worcestershire, England
Contact:

Re: Images of fonts in use Instagram size

Post by William »

I tried the method that Alfred suggested and the resulting png was what I wanted, straightaway without any adjustments being needed.

Thank you Alfred.

The line is 15 point, which added the 10 pixels all around that I wanted.

That seemed strange as I know that 1 point is usually 1 and one third pixels in the Windows system.

So, on a hunch I tried changing the colour of the line and producing a graphic. As well as going outward making the picture bigger, the colour also went inward under the lettering, so all is well, 1 point is actually 1 and one third pixels in the image: it was just that in the first image made this way that the border going inward was not noticeable!

For completeness I tried the original method using the Arial font.

There was a white pale at the right, though not so wide as previously, and lines of a slightly different colour at or near some edges.

I hope to post a link to this thread in the Serif forum.

The Sonnet to a Renaissance Lady font is available as a free download from a link in the following thread.

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1476

Please enjoy using it. I produced the font myself so I am able to say that.

William Overington

23 May 2014
Post Reply