Extremely wierd icon font blur issue in Photoshop only

Glyphs
1

I’m experiencing the weirdest font smoothing issue with this icon font I’m building. But only in Photoshop, and only in the new version of the font.

Font A: I’ve been building an icon font following pretty much the formula set up by Github’s Octicons, that is, intended to render crisply at font-size: 16px;. The bulk of the font was built in Glyphs during the application trial period, but was later finalized in Glyphs Mini. The font is working perfectly on the web and in Photoshop.

Font B: For various reasons, I had to fork that font into two versions, so I duplicated the font, changed the font name in Font Info, removed a few icons and added some others. This version of the font works perfectly on the web, but in Photoshop, barely perceptible blur is added, when the font is shown at 16px with “Sharp” font smoothing.

Here’s a comparison zoomed to 800%. Font B (broken) on the left, font A (working) on the right. Top row shown at 16px font size, bottom row shown at 32px font size.

http://cl.ly/image/2S190D2Z030v

Since the font is intended for web use (where it looks perfect) this is something I can live with. But putting the OTF in font book is a supremely useful way to work with the icons in a mockup. But the blur is crazy making, especially since an exact duplicate of font A, exported using only a different name in Font Info, adds the blur!

Any advice would be apprecaited.

2

This may be a cache issue. To test a font, do not use Font Book, use the Adobe Fonts folder instead. But first, remove the font from Font Book and restart.

3

can you send me both .glyphs and the .otf files (to support at this domain)

4

I’ve verified it wasn’t a cache issue.

I’ve sent source files to support, so as to reproduce the issue.

Thanks.

5

I had a look at this. It seems that Photoshop checks certain glyphs in the font. It it can’t find them, the rendering works differently. The fonts are perfectly find.

6

Georg Seifert

So you’re saying that if I add some glyphs, say, the alphabet, Photoshop should render the font fine?

7

Yes.

8

Thanks. Love the app, recommending it to all my friends.

9

I tried adding the alphabet, didn’t help. Did you get it to work in your tests? Did you use Mini or the full version?

Again, this is not super important – getting it to work in Photoshop is for mockup purposes only. I can certainly live with the added blur.