Debian Bug report logs - #866685
libfreetype6: full hinting ignored

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: libfreetype6: full hinting ignored

Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2017 09:36:52 +1200

Package: libfreetype6
Version: 2.8-0.2
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

upgrading to libfreetype6 2.8-0.2 causes full hinting to be ignored. Tested on Liberation Sans and Deja Vu Sans Mono under XFCE, with effects seen in both GTK2 (full hinting set in XFCE desktop appearance) and GTK3 (full hinting set in user fonts.conf). Downgrading to 2.6.3-3.2 fixes the failure.

Kind regards,
Ben.


-- System Information:
Debian Release: buster/sid
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 4.9.0-3-amd64 (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_GB.utf8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=en_GB:en (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages libfreetype6 depends on:
ii  libc6        2.24-12
ii  libpng16-16  1.6.29-3
ii  zlib1g       1:1.2.8.dfsg-5

libfreetype6 recommends no packages.

libfreetype6 suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information

Message #10 received at 866685@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz>

To: 866685@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#866685: libfreetype6: full hinting ignored

Date: Sat, 1 Jul 2017 13:20:50 +1200

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Please find attached two Thunar screenshots that exhibit the problem. 
Both were produced with identical font settings, example-2.6.png with 
libfreetype6 2.6, and example-2.8 with libfreetype6 2.8. The user 
interface and window title font is Liberation Sans, and the terminal 
font is DejaVu Sans Mono. The effect with 2.8 looks like 2.6 with 
hinting set to none.

-- 
Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz>
Director
Transient Software Limited <http://transient.nz/>
New Zealand

[example-2.6.png (image/png, attachment)]

[example-2.8.png (image/png, attachment)]

Message #15 received at 866685@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>

To: Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz>

Cc: 866685@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#866685: libfreetype6: full hinting ignored

Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2017 07:21:57 +0200

On 2017-07-01 13:20 +1200, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:

> Please find attached two Thunar screenshots that exhibit the
> problem. Both were produced with identical font settings,
> example-2.6.png with libfreetype6 2.6, and example-2.8 with
> libfreetype6 2.8. The user interface and window title font is
> Liberation Sans, and the terminal font is DejaVu Sans Mono. The effect
> with 2.8 looks like 2.6 with hinting set to none.

This is an effect of the subpixel hinting mode which is enabled since
freetype 2.7.  Setting FREETYPE_PROPERTIES=truetype:interpreter-version=35
in the environment should help, at least it did for me.

See /usr/share/doc/libfreetype6/CHANGES.gz for all the gory details.

Cheers,
       Sven

Message #20 received at 866685@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz>

To: Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>

Cc: 866685@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#866685: libfreetype6: full hinting ignored

Date: Mon, 3 Jul 2017 13:57:24 +1200

On 01/07/17 17:21, Sven Joachim wrote:
> This is an effect of the subpixel hinting mode which is enabled since
> freetype 2.7.  Setting FREETYPE_PROPERTIES=truetype:interpreter-version=35
> in the environment should help, at least it did for me.

Thanks very much, Sven. I did not appreciate that the so-called subpixel 
changes are an entirely new interpreter that is now used by default even 
when subpixel hinting is turned off. I can confirm that adding the 
following to my $HOME/.config/xfce4/xinitrc restores the full hinting 
that was the default in libfreetype6 2.6:

export FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35"

Kind regards,

-- 
Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz>
Director
Transient Software Limited <http://transient.nz/>
New Zealand

Message #25 received at 866685@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Corey Hickey <bugfood-c@fatooh.org>

To: 866685@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#866685: libfreetype6: full hinting ignored

Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2017 09:47:32 -0700

Hi,

I ran into this change and found it disconcerting overall. Since it's an 
upstream change, I don't necessarily expect it to be fixed here, but 
I'll report some of what I learned in the hope that it may be generally 
useful.

There's a detailed description here:
https://www.freetype.org/freetype2/docs/subpixel-hinting.html

In my case, the particularly confusing part was due to upgrading 
fontconfig-config and freetype6 at the same time. When I saw the change 
in fonts, I examined the apt log to see what I had just upgraded, found 
fontconfig-config, and reconfigured it. fontconfig-config clearly 
described a change and how to revert to earlier behavior by changing the 
hinting style, but changing that option to "Full" did nothing. 
Eventually I found and researched the libfreetype6 upgrade and arrived 
at this bug.

I might be able to live with the new font rendering in general. It looks 
rather different in many cases, but overall maybe not worse. I'm rather 
particular about my terminal font, though--I selected it specifically 
because it gives crisp, compact text without being too small to be 
readable. I use:

Bitstream Vera Sans Mono:pixelsize=15

With the v35 renderer and full hinting enabled, the lines of the font 
("strokes"?) end up a single pixel wide, with minimal antialiasing to 
smooth them out.

I tried starting terminals with the following fonts in each of the 
renderers simultaneously. I set it up so that I wouldn't know which 
render was in use until I checked, so as to avoid any inherent bias on 
my part.

DejaVu Sans Mono:style=Book
Liberation Mono:style=Regular
Hack:style=Regular
Inconsolata:style=Medium
Fira Code:style=Regular
Nimbus Mono L:style=Regular
Fantasque Sans Mono:style=Regular
Anonymous Pro:style=Regular

Fira Code, Numbus Mono L, and Fantasque Sans Mono looked the same 
regardless of renderer. The others all looked crisper and cleaner in the 
v35 renderer. In general, I'm trying to get used to the new font 
rendering, but I spend so much time in front of terminals that I need to 
stick to a font that works very well, and the v35 renderer does that.

-Corey

Message #30 received at 866685@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Antoine Beaupre <anarcat@debian.org>

To: Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz>, 866685@bugs.debian.org, Corey Hickey <bugfood-c@fatooh.org>

Cc: Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>

Subject: Re: Bug#866685: libfreetype6: full hinting ignored

Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2018 17:20:56 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On Mon, Jul 03, 2017 at 01:57:24PM +1200, Ben Caradoc-Davies wrote:
> On 01/07/17 17:21, Sven Joachim wrote:
> > This is an effect of the subpixel hinting mode which is enabled since
> > freetype 2.7.  Setting FREETYPE_PROPERTIES=truetype:interpreter-version=35
> > in the environment should help, at least it did for me.
> 
> Thanks very much, Sven. I did not appreciate that the so-called subpixel
> changes are an entirely new interpreter that is now used by default even
> when subpixel hinting is turned off.

I agree with that! It was quite a surprise to see my carefully crafted
terminal font become all blurry and fuzzy. I spent quite a bit of time
meddling around with the `fontconfig-config` settings matrix to figure
out what was wrong, until I found this bug. I would *also* have expected
this to be changeable through the debconf menus, or at least visible in
the NEWS notice (which I have also read).

I have made a screenshot (attached) of my different experiments in
trying to revert to the original rendering. In the end, I picked the
"Native autohinter, Full hinting, Automatic subpixel rendering, No
bitmapped fonts" setting in fontconfig-config, with the workaround, to
get the rendering I wanted. It's slightly different than the original
rendering, as the box size is more compact, but I prefer it that way.
The "Always subpixel" setting is the setting I seem to have had in
stretch.

I have yet to read the upstream article about the v40 rendering. Maybe
it's just me being picky and too conservative. Maybe I'm just reacting
badly to a change that is good. But to my eyes, the new font rendering
is much blurrier than it should be, and I don't see what can justify
this.

Maybe this looks better on a 300dpi display, but unfortunately, I'm
still in the previous decade here. ;)

Thanks!

A.

-- 
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the
stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
                       - Bertrand Russell, The Triumph of Stupidity, 1933

[snap-2018.08.22-17.11.34.png (image/png, attachment)]

[signature.asc (application/pgp-signature, inline)]

Message #35 received at 866685@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Antoine Beaupré <anarcat@debian.org>

To: Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz>, 866685@bugs.debian.org, Corey Hickey <bugfood-c@fatooh.org>

Cc: Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>

Subject: Re: Bug#866685: libfreetype6: full hinting ignored

Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2018 10:02:12 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

On 2018-08-22 17:20:56, Antoine Beaupre wrote:
> I have yet to read the upstream article about the v40 rendering. Maybe
> it's just me being picky and too conservative. Maybe I'm just reacting
> badly to a change that is good. But to my eyes, the new font rendering
> is much blurrier than it should be, and I don't see what can justify
> this.

I have reviewed the article in question, and I'm not convinced. It looks
like this was done to work with newer ClearType fonts from Microsoft,
but it doesn't look as good on Liberation. In the article, the examples
given are the Consolas and Georgia fonts, two proprietary fonts from
Microsoft which are not even available for download (let alone
distribution). And sure, in those screenshots the display actually looks
better. But install the freetype-demos package (which I found out from
that article, great!) and try this:


FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=35" ftview 16 ./truetype/liberation/LiberationMono-Regular.ttf &
FREETYPE_PROPERTIES="truetype:interpreter-version=40" ftview 16 ./truetype/liberation/LiberationMono-Regular.ttf &

[snap-2018.08.29-10.00.20.png (image/png, inline)]

[snap-2018.08.29-10.00.40.png (image/png, inline)]

[Message part 4 (text/plain, inline)]

Spoilers: I really think the original renderer does a better job. The
whole argument behind the article is that the original rendering is
"pixely", but the new rendering is pixely as well! It's just more
blurry.

So I am really not convinced this is an improvement, and I think a bug
should be filed upstream on this.

A.

-- 
We have no friends but the mountains.
                        - Kurdish saying

Message #40 received at 866685@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Antoine Beaupré <anarcat@debian.org>

To: Ben Caradoc-Davies <ben@transient.nz>, 866685@bugs.debian.org, Corey Hickey <bugfood-c@fatooh.org>

Cc: Sven Joachim <svenjoac@gmx.de>

Subject: Re: Bug#866685: libfreetype6: full hinting ignored

Date: Wed, 29 Aug 2018 14:19:51 -0400

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Another screenshot, this time trying to reproduce the ones provided in
the article:

[snap-2018.08.29-14.11.10.png (image/png, inline)]

[Message part 3 (text/plain, inline)]

I don't quite get it. The first screenshot in the article is the second
row. And yes, we can see the Consolas font does not render well in the
3.5 engine. But then with Georgia, it's the opposite: the 4.0 engine
seems to make everything bolder, just like 3.5 does with Consolas.

The second screenshot, which uses Georgia and Noto, conveniently uses
the 3.5 engine for the former, and 4.0 for the latter. The argument made
in that second screenshot is:

> Snapping things to the grid on one axis instead of two greatly reduces
> the complexity and cost of hinting, looks smoother and comes with
> important spacing benefits for horizontal (Latin!) text. And it's just
> as readable.

Yet the difference between the 3.5 and 4.0 engine on the Noto font is
imperceptible to me, so I don't understand the argument. Spacing and
alignment seem as incoherent with the new rendering engine on Georgia as
well. Maybe it's *slightly* more spaced out, but that's barely
perciptible as well.

So I don't know what they are getting at here, quite frankly. It would
be great if someone with more of a clue about fonts could look into
this. I do not feel qualified to go upstream on that one,
unfortunately...

A.

-- 
To understand how any society functions you must understand the
relationship between the men and the women
                        - Angela Davis

Message #47 received at 866685-done@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Hugh McMaster <hugh.mcmaster@outlook.com>

To: 866685-done@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: Bug#866685: libfreetype6: full hinting ignored

Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2019 21:11:30 +1100

Thank you for investigating - and demonstrating - the differences
between rendering engines.

At this point, and around two and a half years after this bug was
opened, I see no reason why Debian (and potentially other distros)
would revert to the old rendering engine.

Although subtle, there are many visual improvements to be had using
the newer renderer. That said, you are free to use v3.5 on your
systems as necessary.

Closing.

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