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optical kerning?


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2 hours ago, fde101 said:

Currently this can be done manually or based on data that is provided with a font, under the Optical Alignment section of the Character panel.

"Automatic" optical alignment is not currently supported.

Optical kerning is not optical alignment. 

It has been stated optical kerning is not being worked on. 

The font's kern tables are used and this automatic kerning can be further tweaked using manual kerning and or tracking. These manual adjustments can further be used globally via text styles. 

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10 hours ago, MikeW said:

It has been stated optical kerning is not being worked on. 

thanks for chiming in. have you got a link at hand? i searched but i found only side babbles about it but no actual staff statement.

 

10 hours ago, MikeW said:

The font's kern tables are used and this automatic kerning can be further tweaked using manual kerning and or tracking. These manual adjustments can further be used globally via text styles. 

where can they be adjusted to tracking and how would you adjust it manually that it remember which letters need less or more space?

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I would need to do a thorough search as well, but as I commented in the thread, it might be easier for me. 

Unlike QXP, there are no kerning tables one can thereafter automatically adjust pairs. One only can set a value for the entire font.

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  • 1 month later...

Optical kerning is an absolutely necessary feature. Whenever you are using fonts that have no good kerning tables optical kerning takes care to modify differently the spacing between each letter and puntuation mark. Doing this manually, for each letter, would be an absolutely impossible feat to do even for a few sentences.

I don't know why affinity decided that this feature wasn't necessary nor urgent, even if in 2016 was already discussed and requested.

The lack of optical kerning makes it practically impossible for anyone working with slightly less used fonts to use affinity instead of photoshop.

@Dave Harris

I hope you really reconsider your stance on this matter, I'm sure many people need this as much as I do.

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22 hours ago, Nanndc said:

Whenever you are using fonts that have no good kerning tables

Hello @Nanndc,

welcome to the forum.

I want to ask why one should / would use a font that does not have good kerning tables in the first place? If there is the need for this particualur font one has to deal with its lack of features.

If it is an exotic/special font that cannot be replaced easily by a font with better attributes, this should be used only for a small amount of text and manual kerning should be no big deal.

If you want to use such a font for a huge amount of text you'd be better off to look for a better working alternative.

In the long run we will see if Affinity will have this. But for the moment it is not on the list

Cheers,
d.

 

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 4/14/2019 at 4:10 PM, dominik said:

I want to ask why one should / would use a font that does not have good kerning tables in the first place? If there is the need for this particualur font one has to deal with its lack of features.

So your answer is "lmao who usez that?!"
Affinity Photo should really consider that many users are not going to use fonts paid two times the cost of the software itself, but they'll use free fonts from public repositories, and I have over 1 thousands fonts like this, which I use dailiy, and are absolutely unusable on affinity.
The thing is that such feature would appeal to a larger pool of consumers. 

It's not a priority? It's all right, I understand that there might more urgent features to be implemented, but for me, as for many others like me, this feature is crucial and lack of it is a deal breaker.

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34 minutes ago, Nanndc said:

It's not a priority? It's all right, I understand that there might more urgent features to be implemented, but for me, as for many others like me, this feature is crucial and lack of it is a deal breaker.

I don't wan't to be rude but do you actually understand what Optical Kerning is?

Here is one answer that might interest you.

I always use metrics. I prefer to use kerns that the font designer has looked at rather than metrics generated by an algorithm. Given that it's usually agreed that the best kerning is achieved manually, I'm always quite amazed at the number of people who prefer app-generated kerns. (I've wondered whether this was not due in part to the name; if it was called "automatic" or "machine" instead of "optical" kerning and "metrics" was called ""manual" or "human" kerning, would we see a difference in the numbers?) 

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In InDesign, I very often do use optical kerning, and I would be glad for the same in Publisher. We publish in French, and when it comes to kerning, the first thing I look at is where the apostrophe appears in cases such as "c'est." Many fonts do not have ideal spacing in these cases (which are very frequent in French), and not just the freebie fonts. Even InDesign's default font Minion Pro is an exampl e where optical kerning does better; without it, there is not enough space:

1893060260_ScreenShot2019-05-13at11_43_52AM.png.9a76ad63246f64fc6619309bcc7af686.png

However, an automatic "Optical Kerning" is only one way to solve this issue. I actually would be happier to have some way to tweak kerning pairs as part of text styles. Perhaps some interface similar to the approach of the current "Optical Alignment" in text styles, except applied to kerning. That way we could have the benefit of the human-tuned kerning tables of a font and override only in pairs where necessary given the current language or scenario.

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2 hours ago, Nanndc said:

 I have over 1 thousands fonts like this, which I use dailiy, and are absolutely unusable on affinity.
It's not a priority? It's all right, I understand that there might more urgent features to be implemented, but for me, as for many others like me, this feature is crucial and lack of it is a deal breaker.

I have several hundred fonts -- most of which are free fonts -- ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous, which I also use "daily" which are completely usable with all three Affinity apps.   But if I decide to use something wild and wooly like Amal Demo or Fajita or etc. I expect to have to work at it a little bit if I want to fiddle with their appearance.     In the meantime, and just personally, I prefer garrettm30's approach to kerning.    I suspect that there are others who may also find your "nothing works with Affinity...this is crucial... and a deal breaker" just a wee bit much.    


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55 minutes ago, garrettm30 said:

In InDesign, I very often do use optical kerning, and I would be glad for the same in Publisher. We publish in French, and when it comes to kerning, the first thing I look at is where the apostrophe appears in cases such as "c'est." Many fonts do not have ideal spacing in these cases (which are very frequent in French), and not just the freebie fonts. Even InDesign's default font Minion Pro is an exampl e where optical kerning does better; without it, there is not enough space:

1893060260_ScreenShot2019-05-13at11_43_52AM.png.9a76ad63246f64fc6619309bcc7af686.png

However, an automatic "Optical Kerning" is only one way to solve this issue. I actually would be happier to have some way to tweak kerning pairs as part of text styles. Perhaps some interface similar to the approach of the current "Optical Alignment" in text styles, except applied to kerning. That way we could have the benefit of the human-tuned kerning tables of a font and override only in pairs where necessary given the current language or scenario.

So, which is which in the screen shot taken in ID below?

Capture_000026.png.273434c2232102d6b27e6fbc27d472aa.png

A question. Why is it that Optical Kerning is not the default?

User-configurable kerning tables is a good idea. But that said, I am amazed at how many people that use QXP have never used them.

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1 hour ago, MikeW said:

So, which is which in the screen shot taken in ID below?

Every font is different, so I can't really tell (and I assume you are not doing manual kerning also). My guess is that the one on the left is "metrics" and the one on the right is "optical."  If such is the case, then the font you chose is a case where the font as designed leaves more space after the apostrophe than optical kerning, while Minion Pro is the opposite in that the designers did not leave enough space. In fact, either of your examples would be better in my mind than what Minion Pro (and some others) does in this case, and the easy fix in InDesign is to use optical kerning.

 

1 hour ago, MikeW said:

A question. Why is it that Optical Kerning is not the default?

I assume it is because a well designed font should typically be better kerned by the designer than a kind of automatic spacing algorithm. I probably use optical kerning less than half the time, but it always depends on the font. I usually try both options to see which is better, and sometimes "better" must simply be better on the balance.

In my case, I am looking for a solution for a specific problem (globally tweaking poor kerning) rather than a specific solution (such as optical kerning). A different solution that lets us tweak kerning pairs (perhaps like QXP? I am not familiar with it) could be better. If it had to be one or the other, I think I would prefer being able to tweak the kerning pairs rather than an optical kerning.

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6 minutes ago, garrettm30 said:

If it had to be one or the other, I think I would prefer being able to tweak the kerning pairs rather than an optical kerning.

Yep.

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30 minutes ago, garrettm30 said:

Every font is different, so I can't really tell (and I assume you are not doing manual kerning also). My guess is that the one on the left is "metrics" and the one on the right is "optical."  If such is the case, then the font you chose is a case where the font as designed leaves more space after the apostrophe than optical kerning, while Minion Pro is the opposite in that the designers did not leave enough space. In fact, either of your examples would be better in my mind than what Minion Pro (and some others) does in this case, and the easy fix in InDesign is to use optical kerning.

I assume it is because a well designed font should typically be better kerned by the designer than a kind of automatic spacing algorithm. I probably use optical kerning less than half the time, but it always depends on the font. I usually try both options to see which is better, and sometimes "better" must simply be better on the balance.

In my case, I am looking for a solution for a specific problem (globally tweaking poor kerning) rather than a specific solution (such as optical kerning). A different solution that lets us tweak kerning pairs (perhaps like QXP? I am not familiar with it) could be better. If it had to be one or the other, I think I would prefer being able to tweak the kerning pairs rather than an optical kerning.

Metric is left and optical is right. I'm thinking ID shouldn't have closed the space. At least as much as it did, especially on the smallest point size above.

Yes, QXP can edit or create kerning pairs.

Capture_000027.png.a6fc3aefebb08cfad14089424717bd44.png

QXP can also edit tracking. It is kind of neat how it does it. One uses point sizes and tracking amounts to those point sizes. So, for instance, one can have wider tracking from 2-7 points, widen it from 8 to 16 points, etc. This is an especially great feature when there were few kern pairs, or was too tight on text below a certain point size (or the opposite). In combination with the kern table editing, it is pretty powerful.

As can be seen in the screen shot, these tables can be exported/imported to other styles in the family and/or fonts as well. Speeds up the overall editing.

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  • 2 months later...
8 minutes ago, Stes said:

Yep, I need Optical kerning.

Or turn on proportional numerals or use a font with them in case the font in use doesn't have them. Or use InDesign. Or use QuarkXPress wherein one can change the kerning tables. Or ... wait a long time for Serif to include optical kerning, if Serif ever does.

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Back in the day, InDesign's optical character spacing (and Quark managers' inability to comprehend why anyone could possibly want such a thing) was one of ID's bigger selling points for many of us and a significant contributor to ID taking over the world. Thing is, even ye spendy professional founts only define a relatively limited number of character pairs, leaving the rest for the ordinary sidebearing values to sort out. Unfortunately, these don't work out at all well for some character combinations.

Going through and fixing any significant size of document by hand is quite impractical and AP will need something if it's ever to get anywhere for high-end work. If optical spacing is in the too-hard basket, Quark's system of calling separate look-up tables to supplement a fount's built-in spacing when used within the app should be simpler to implement. After all, Quark were able to implement their system at least as far back as V.2 (I can't remember if it was in V.1) in the late 1980s, when computers and software were a lot more basic than they are today.

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