Color Bleed with cleartype.

Hi all first post here so hello :), basically the problem i have is with clear type on i have a red color bleed around the edge of some text, anyone know how to fix it? I used the desktop with segoe ui light font and with clear type off theres is close to no red around the edge of text with it on text is smoother and clearer but with red around the edge of it, only faint but noticeable.

This wouldn't bother me as when using the standard win7 font, it is not noticeable really at all using windows programs and stuff but when using firefox it is quite noticebale.

On the left is firefox 4 config page, where it is particularly noticeable, second in is me typeing the most affected word, accessibilty, and on the far left is me typing the same word with cleartype off.

As you can see on firefox the color bleed is very clear, typing within in windows is noticeable but faint and with cleartype off it is non -existent but text is harder to read, any ideas?

May Help To englarge the image btw

Yeah i was worried that the slight redness may not show up on a monitor that isnt expiernencing this problem with clear type (actually an lcd tv) i got a second pair of eyes to look at it to confirm that u wasnt just going mad and she agrees with me.
It's mainly around the bility bit and is much, much clearer when you click to enlarge the image, not so clear other wise.

I have tried bith of those links alreadly and i even tried to download the config utilty for xp that has more options but no luck, atm i just have cleartype off and stuck all of the fonts on bold now it all looks fine, but just not smooth.

Can definately see the red shading on both my Win 7 laptop and Wix XP with 24" Samsumg monitor.

I am using Windows 7.

I enlarged your listing, copied it into Photoshop and enlarged there. Actually there is a red stripe and a green stripe and many other pixels of faint color around the edges of all the characters except the ones in the rightmost column of the word "accessibility".

You have anti-aliasing (aka smoothing) turned on for all the characters except those "accessibility"s in the right most column. Smoothing is made by adding some pixels with varying degrees of transparency set around the corners and in the narrow spots of letters. Since it is transparancy, whatever the smoothing algorithm thinks is the background (it would be something with red stripes and green plus other colors) then the font color (black in your case) will take on the background color at the edges built out with smoothing. This looks fine if the background really is that complex color pattern. But if the smoothed letters are placed against a background of a different color, then you'll see an apparent bleed.

In the rightmost column, smoothing is off and so each letter is the font color of black placed against a white background. No bleeding in this column. But there are reasons why smoothing looks better in most cases. Without it, you get sharp corners, jagged diagonal lines, and in small characters the letter sometimes looks like it has breaks or holes due to not enough pixels filling the width of the letter.

I don't know enough about what you are doing exactly to tell you why this happens, i.e., how you got the smoothing calculated with the wrong background.

You can see/change the effect details being applied to text by clicking the startup flag button, and typing into the search window at the bottom: Appearance

This puts up a lot of choices for tuning things. Click the top one, Adjust Appearance and Performance. You can see if smoothing is checked as I'm sure it is. You can try turning it off, not sure how this interacts with setting Clear Type on. There is also another fine option, drop shadow. This will give you icon labels with drop shadows giving a blurred look to labels against a white background.

Looking fwd to the next installment of your investigation.

PS: most resize algorithms perform smoothing within an image. If your investigation involves resizing or zooming, fuzzing at edges within the image will be introduced and bleeding effects in the initial image enhanced. In PhotoShop, use the "Nearest Neighbor" resize algorithm to avoid this.

This is a lot more complex than I thought. See the post, Engineering Changes to ClearType in Windows 7, 6/23/2009:

Engineering Changes to ClearType in Windows 7

There is a whole lot in it, including more or less what I described above which is not the Clear Type algorithm. There's a long description of Clear Type which I did not understand. But it looks like it may introduce color.

One thing I did try is that when you turn on ClearType, smoothing is also turned on in Appearance. But you can turn off smoothing in Appearance, and ClearType remains on.

I do appreciate your input but this thread is almost a year old and my problem seems to have significantly lessened since I switched to nvidia, however it is also worth noting that I had to manual add the EDID data to the nvidia drivers to allow my gpu to display correctly, which worked, but I have also come to the conclusion that the EDID data in my screen is not accurate, this may have also been causing an issue with my ATI gpu, maybe not.
But things seem alot better now.

BTW that screen in my op now looks different and alot better.

It could also be that before calibrating Cleartype you must load an ICC profile for your monitor, ensure the right drivers are pumping the graphics card, and avoid using cheap cables. Even then some older panels may still need additional Gamma adjustment or display better with a custom ICC profile.

Then there are panels, and there are panels. I've used IPS and been spoilt. When I look at most TN panels it makes me realise how lucky I've been in that respect; although I must admit I'm using E-IPS monitors now as the true IPS replacements I wanted were just too damned expensive.

If I remember correctly I believe there was a conflict of some sort initially with Cleartype and either DX11 or iE9, which I'd say was prior to SP1 and is something which has certainly since been resolved.

you may have hit the nail on the head there, before I moved my internet was way to slow to update windows to the max, now it isnt and I have installed SP1, that may have been what helped resolve the issue, because I dont really notice it when I have my ATI gpu in and Im using my gtx 260 to fold.