Anti-aliasing Type in Photoshop

D from USA, using Photoshop 7 with Mac OS 10.2, writes in with:
[Quote:] I am designing a postcard to send to a printing company. I have to set the type in Photoshop. For small type in Times font to be printed which of the text antialising options is best - Sharp, Crisp, Strong or Smooth? Thank you for your help.

Let's unravel those type variations for you and get some clean type...

Build your files to the maximum resolution required by the output device, and use the Smooth setting. Better yet, if the small type will be smaller than 8 point, then don't use Times. Even optimum resolution EPS Times Roman is difficult to read in sizes smaller than 7 or 8 point.

Anti-aliasing
Observe the Options bar offers four rendering modes other than 'none.' which you don't want to use.
1. Sharp: makes type appear the most sharp - with the least amount of 'soft' pixels introduced.
2. Crisp: makes type appear somewhat less sharp than sharp
3. Strong : introduces more smoothing pixels, and type appears heavier
4. Smooth: renders the most smooth rendition.

These options are available in the Options bar, note the anti-aliasing menu (aa) in the options bar, the Character palette, or (menu) Layer > Type submenu option

At very small sizes, or low resolution, anti-aliasing will cause some inconsistency in rendering and spacing. Turning off the "Fractional Width" option in the Character palette menu may remedy this problem

Two most important rules:
1. Consult printer for optimum resolution, and
2. Test it.

Thanks for writing in, send us a post card when they're done!