Problems with jagged text.

I created a new image 500x500 pixels at 72 pixels per inch resolution. However when I added some text to this image it came out all jagged and of poor quality.
I then created a new image with a resolution of 300 pixels and the text in this came out perfect, however where in the first image the text was about 18pt in the second image I had to drop the text down to about 9 point to be the same size. What resolution hould I be using for web page design and how do I get around the poor quality of lower resolution? I expect some drop in quality but the text at 72 pixels was no where near usable.

Thanks in advance.

hi there.

pictures in the web usually are created with 72 dpi.

the problem with jagged text. i'm only guessing what you're about.

look at the style (don't know if this is the right word for it) you can add to text (see screenshot below). possible options in photoshop 7 are: 'None' 'Sharp' 'Crisp' 'Strong' 'Smooth'. If you have choosen 'None' your text will NOT be anti-aliased.

the sreenshot shows you twice the word 'text'. for the example i used ARIAL 10pt. the first one is with Style 'None' second with Style 'Smooth'.
[EDIT: the text is zoomed in for better view to 400%]

by the way not each font is designed to be shown on screen. some are only used for print. so scaling these ones down may make them unreadable.

hope i could help
tigercat.

Thanks for the reply Tigercat. I did try using smooth crisp etcbut it didnt really improve. As you said it must just be that this type isnt good for the web. I was using palatino linotype and following a tutorial on creating a web page header so thought it would work okay. It certainly semed to work in the picture on the tutorial.

HI there again.

Another thing you can try is to create your work bigger in size (twice or three times bigger) and after everything is done resize it to the end width/height.
BUT this idea is not the best one cause you first have to rasterize the text-layer. now you can work with your text-layer as it would be a normal image. DISADVANTAGE: you cannot edit your text later on any more.

Sometimes it may also help if you set your resolution higher then finally needed (150 dpi should do the job but sometimes i like to work with 300 dpi) and reduce it after having done the whole work flattening the whole image first.

GERNERAL:
What about posting a little screenshot here with all nessecary information (resolution, document with, settings in (I still call it ) STYLE etc. Perhaps I/WE will come more close to your problem. and show us how the font looks like.

always wanting the best for everybody. so keep on smiling ;-)
tigercat

I went to do it again and it came out fine this time. So perhaps I had a setting wrong somewhere last time. I seem to be doing that a lot lately.
Thanks for the help...