Making Buttons: My Fonts Look Terrible--Any Advice?

[motumbo]

I tried making some buttons in Adobe Photoshop 6 and it didn't come out too well.  The problem is that the fonts that Adobe uses tend to blend into the background and make the fonts look sort of pixelated.  I'm sure a few of you understand what I am talking about.

What I tried to do is take a button, put some text on hit like "HOME" and then make the letters transparent.  I want to use CSS a:hover so that when the cursor hovers over the botton (or table cell), the background changes creating a glowing colored effect for the text.  But the text doesn't look good.  It's all pixelated.

So, if anyone has any advice on which font to use to produce nice looking button text in Adobe Photoshop I'd greatly appreciate it.  I was using Arial and Times New Roman.  Not good ideas, I don't think.

Thank you very much.

[snork13]

try adding a drop shadow to just the text may help the text pop.


you can download thousands of fonts, check out google.

Simply copy the .ttf font file into c:\windows\fonts

[kegobeer]

There are many web font recommendations out there - try Googling for web fonts.

[webm0nster]

If the font size is really tiny turn off all anti-aliasing (select box next to the font size) Regular size (say 12px and up) try the setting Crisp. Settings Smooth and Strong I have noticed give me problems like you describe.

[Cheese-Burger]

Don`t forget to set the image to RGB first. If you start out in the Indexed mode, you will get pixelated text.

[motumbo]

If the font size is really tiny turn off all anti-aliasing (select box next to the font size) Regular size (say 12px and up) try the setting Crisp. Settings Smooth and Strong I have noticed give me problems like you describe.

Hey thanks.  I barely use Photoshop and I have those settings set.  I'll switch them off and take a look-see.