Kerning Fonts

J.R. Hudson

J.R. Hudson

Spirit Animal
Alright; who knows about this subject? Using Fonts and Titles in your NLE (I use Vegas). I tend to get the kind that 'pixelate' and look like crap.

When do I use KERNING and at how many PTS to I set them for optimal appearance.
 
Doesn't kerning determine the space between letters? I know one of those crazy named functions does!
 
John_Hudson said:
Alright; who knows about this subject? Using Fonts and Titles in your NLE (I use Vegas). I tend to get the kind that 'pixelate' and look like crap.

When do I use KERNING and at how many PTS to I set them for optimal appearance.
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Kerning is the spacing between letters.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerning

Selection of font is very important. Sans-serif fonts are better for titles than serif fonts.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serif

The little "legs" or features of the serif fonts can look distorted, missing, etc. because of their small size.

On another note, I'm not familiar with Vegas' titler, but if it produces bitmap titles rather than vector titles, that can cause problems. If the rendered output is scaled differently than the size the titles were created for, the titles will be scaled and may end up pixelated.
 
Kerning is the space between letters. Different fonts will kern differently. For example for a given font, the space between an "l" and an "s" may be greater for one font than another. Use your judgment. But you can select just those two letters in Vegas and adjust the kerning accordingly.

Leading is the space between lines of text. Auto should be fine, but as a rule, your leading should be one point larger than your text size for paragraph or body text.

Serif fonts are best for body text because the legs help the eye flow from word to word. Sans-serif fonts are best for titles.

While we're on the subject, avoid using drop shadows on text unless it is needed to separate the text from the background. Otherwise you should place the text so the eye flows naturally from top-left to bottom-right.

My wife suggests this book to learn about type:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...f=sr_1_1/002-2990878-8632067?v=glance&s=books

As far as the particulars of Vegas, I think the pixelated look may be related to the font you're using. Good luck, m'man!
 
Another solution I remember reading somewhere is to create them in Photoshop (or the like), and bring them into your NLE. You can do a credit roll as a single PNG document (if you want transparent background), and use track motion to make it scroll.
 
XCheck said:
Another solution I remember reading somewhere is to create them in Photoshop (or the like), and bring them into your NLE.
Click to expand...
But be sure to create the image the correct size for the final rendered output. Otherwise, you might end up with scaled and jaggy text.
 
Frizzle Fry said:
Serif fonts are best for body text because the legs help the eye flow from word to word. Sans-serif fonts are best for titles.
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You lost me here. The conversation was about "titles" added to film/video. When you say "body text" are you speaking in a context outside of film/video?
 
Sorry Hans, that's a print convention. Don't know if/how that translates to video. Thanks for calling me on that one.
 
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