Softening the edges of jagged generated fonts

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Capagris
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Oct 16, 2015 12:06 pm

Softening the edges of jagged generated fonts

Post by Capagris »

I print my template sheet, write down my characters, scan it at 600dpi then let scanahand do its magic.
The generated font however is picking up all the tiny micro-jagged-edges along the countour of each character generated by the fibers of my marker.

What do you guys suggest I do in order to avoid this effect? In order of severity:

1.- Lower dpi for the scan?
2.- Increase the value of the 'filter' drop-down under GENERATE? What exactly does the filter do and not do? Testing has only given me partial understanding.
3.- Individually modify each glyph/character:

Which brings me to a sub-question of sorts. Is there a way to grab the generated characters by scanahand, and once opened in Fontcreator - EXPORT them for editing on some other vector program, say, Adobe Illustrator, before importing them back? I couldn't find anything hence my question.

Cheers
G
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Softening the edges of jagged generated fonts

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

The scan can be saved and edited in an image editor to remove any unwanted splatters.

The Higher Smooth settings should remove jagged edges.

600 dpi is usually adequate for the scan. If you're using more than that it might slow down font generation without much benefit.

After installing the font you could use it to type over a template in a drawing application, then convert the text to curves, edit the vectors, and export the template plus text as a new template to run through Scanahand.

It would be a lot easier to buy FontCreator, import your font, and do all of the editing of glyph outlines there.
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