Quote:
Originally Posted by LDBoblo
If their contrast is equal and if they are both equally capable of using hinting to offset their limitations. They are not.
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For those with normal vision, global contrast has a far lower impact on the readability of text than resolution. The eye's contrast sensitivity function peaks at around 6-8 cycles per degree, and the closer the device can get to matching that the better.
Here's an example: 'Il1' in Times New Roman. The text on the right is rendered at half the point size of that on the left then scaled by 200% without interpolation so both elements are the same size, but with half the resolution on the right. The 'l' on the left is 17 pixels high. The contrast on the left is markedly lower, yet the text is far more legible, in fact the 'I' and 'l' on the right have blended together and look more like a Cyrillic capital delta.
As for hinting, while Apple developed the technology for use with their original laser printer, they have long-since
altered their approach to font rendering. Hinting deliberately distorts character shapes to align them with the pixel grid and produce sharper borders. Apple's current anti-aliasing scheme is designed to retain character shapes and mimic the overall appearance of text on the page in print (the 'typographic colour'). Lots of people like it, and it works well when using large sizes which give the rendering engine lots of pixels to play with. But small text turns into mush.
I'm not privy to the inner secrets of exactly how Apple's text rendering engine works, but it certainly doesn't use hinting in the same manner as MS's ClearType. ClearType produces much sharper text, but only properly works with fonts that have been specifically designed for it from the ground up and can introduce clearly visible distortions in character shapes.