Text Opacity Different Color Than Shape & Smart Object Opacity?

[neulionrk]

The above image has a smart object (Left), Text Layer (Mid), and Shape Layer (Right) all with the same base color and all with 45% opacity, and a solid color behind them. Why does the text have a drastically different color than the smart object and shape which are exactly the same color? Any input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Rob

[davescm · Accepted solution]

Hi

It is due to your colour setting for blending text. By default this is set to a different gamma to the colorspace gamma used for pixels.

Uncheck it and it will look the same

Dave

[neulionrk]

Awesome, thanks Dave really appreciate it

Rob

[davescm]

You're welcome

Dave

Edit to add : Whilst unchecking it solves your issue (i.e. the blends will match)  - I would not uncheck it permanently for all images. The gamma was chosen to give the best anti-aliasing on text. You may see issues in other fonts/documents if you uncheck permanently. I guess it's all about knowing the best settings for your image.

[AE-FTW]

I've been using Photoshop for 25 years as a web designer and I've never seen this behaviour before.

It is batsh|t insane to have this setting enabled. It is especially crazy to enable it automatically.

Why would I want rendered opacity to vary between type layers and everything else?

Smart vector objects, Shapes, and pixels all behave normally, but my type is the wrong colour?! Who would want that?

If I rasterise the type, the colour changes to to match the non-type opacity too!

Totally nuts functionality.

Thanks for the solution Davescm, I would have never found it without your tip!

[davescm]

This was discussed a long time ago with one of the developers who used to post on here. The default is set to give the best antialiasing for text. So there are good reasons for it. Like many things in digital imaging, this is about choosing the right settings for the image concerned.

Dave

[AE-FTW]

The end result is to artificially multiply the rendered opacity value of the entire text layer just to improve the rendering quality of its edges.

That make sense to anyone?

Isn't that the same as reviewing my layer at 50% and thinking, "oh, that anti-aliasing looks poor, I'll bump it to 65%".

The whole layer is affected... so why make a secret rule?

And why enable it by default so that this behaviour applies to every historical file I open??

This seems really wrong to me.

Glad I've found it and disabled.

[davescm]

Hi

As long as you are aware of the impact you can set it to whatever works for you.

Here is the discussion with Chris Cox, who was the Adobe engineer I referred to:

Re: Why would I not want to Blend RGB and Text Colors Using Gamma 1.00?

Dave

[AE-FTW]

Thanks for the link. I get it now.

This setting is effectively a "Spread" value for edge hardness on type layers only.

It's sort of the same as the anti-aliasing drop-down setting in the Character palette (ie, Sharp, Strong, Smooth, etc) but a global application setting. Great idea, I guess. Especially if you find type always a little fuzzy for your taste (even when set to crisp).

However, the implementation is terrible for 2 reasons:

1. The enforced setting after update affects all PSDs - even those from previous PS versions - until the Setting is disabled. Changing artwork without telling me? That's not cool.
2. The edge hardness (anti-aliasing) settings of type layers, should not effect the overall opacity of the layer. Not Ever! This multiplier is overriding my true layer opacity which is invalidating values everywhere throughout the Photoshop interface. Colours, percentages, effects - they are all inaccurate, with this turned on, for type layers at <100% opacity. That is amazingly stupid.

[LarryK_95]

I've been struggling to understand this for several years now and am glad to finally have a way to fix it. It really makes no sense to me either. Especially when you open a document and turn the visibility on/off for a unrelated layer and suddenly the text opacity changes on its own, since when you first open the document the text looks to be about 15% lighter opacity than it should be.

Which is a real problem when you have a batch of related graphics that you output to like a jpg or something. Say you have all the psd's completed, and then open them all to output the final files. Then you need to come back and make a revision to one and before closing that revised file you output a new final file, but now the text opacity is different from all your other final files. Really dumb.