Bold characters no longer bold

GO
Posted By
Graham_Ormerod
Jan 12, 2007
Views
336
Replies
14
Status
Closed
I am pretty new to photoshop, and followed instructions faithfully, but still didn’t get what I was looking for.

I need to create a new chinese character (which are essentially pictures) by using the parts of two other chinese charaacters. The end result has to be the same font and size and the same boldness as the original. I have managed everything apart from two things:

1) the new picture/character is not bold any more. For some reason, it has changed to a kind of light grey. This said, it is still 100% black. (please note that the characters were typed into PhotoShop in the correct bold font and size)

2) it looks OK in Phototshop, but when I copy the new character (as a jpeg file) into InDesign and put it next to the other ‘natural’ chinese characters, (a) it is obviously not bold, and (b), the picture/character has jagged, pixellated edges.

I am not sure what I am doing wrong – any ideas?

Many thanks – Graham
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BL
Bob Levine
Jan 12, 2007
I think you’re going to need to post some screen shots, but I’ll give you one piece of advice….never C/P from Photoshop to InDesign.

Save as PDF from Photoshop (that will retain vector and text) and place that in InDesign.

Bob
GO
Graham_Ormerod
Jan 13, 2007
Dear Bob,

Thanks for helping out on this. The problem is with the title and it is pretty obvious even to a non-chinese reader where the problem lies. I hope you can help on this. Could you also confirm that in a case like this, that I can use a copy of the character image in PDF format and place that in INDD.

< http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1Yfrhmn8WhkUtNDVZk SMDyHUmayFFi0>

Best regards – Graham
BL
Bob Levine
Jan 13, 2007
PDF is certainly the way I would go.

Bob
GO
Graham_Ormerod
Jan 13, 2007
Hello Bob,

I did what you said and created a PDF in photoshop of the character and ‘placed’ it into my INDD file. There was no appreciable difference in the two files. The character has lost its ‘boldness’ and the character has jagged edges. NB I do start with bold characters, why I’m not ending up with a bold character is really annoying me.

Any other ideas as to what I might be doing wrong?

Hope so – Thanks – Graham
BL
Bob Levine
Jan 13, 2007
Can you post the files somewhere?

Bob
BL
Bob Levine
Jan 13, 2007
One othere thought….have you tried doing the text in InDesign or Illustrator? They’re both far better choices for dealing with text.

Bob
Y
YGC
Jan 13, 2007
I would also make text in Indesign or Illustrator. Even when I make a presentation, I always add the text in Indesign.
If you make the text in Illustrator select it, option-C, go to PS en paste it as a SMART- OBJECT, so you can scale en rescale it without losing quality. You have to do this only when it still has to be presentated. Otherwise stick to ID or IL.

Yves
GO
Graham_Ormerod
Jan 14, 2007
Dear Bob, Yves,

I am not sure what you mean by ‘make text’. Each of the Chinese characters I am using is a ‘picture’ (well perhaps letter are, too). I am getting very confused – will Illustrator allow me to keep the ‘boldness’ in the new character? What exactly is ‘bold’ when you want to replicate it in these different softwares. Still not at all sure what I am doing, but I will persevere.

Thanks – Graham
B
Bernie
Jan 14, 2007
I believe Yves means typing the text (using a Chinese character font)
BL
Bob Levine
Jan 14, 2007
I was under the impression that you were using a Chinese font. If you’re not using a font, then how are you determining what’s bold and what’s not?

Bob
GO
Graham_Ormerod
Jan 15, 2007
Hi Bob,

I am using a Chinese bold font, which I type straight into Photoshop. As I remember, I then flattened those, what naturally should have been bold, characters, cut them up and created a new one, which I saved as a JPEG and a PDF file. However, the end result was as in the posted file – the ‘bold’ seemed to have disappeared.

Is that usual? Is there some kind of setting that makes the colour black into a ‘bold’ black or an ‘extra bold’ black (some of the chinese character fonts I use specify in their name that they are ‘extra bold’).

Thanks – Graham
JJ
John Joslin
Jan 15, 2007
Graham

are you confusing us with your terminology?

In typography Bold means not that the letters are blacker, but that they are heavier, thicker, call it what you will.

Your errant character is lacking in "blackness" not "boldness".

It is also anti-aliased and blurred. You are obviously causing this effect in the method you use to create the composite character in what is primarily a pixel program.

Do the whole title line in Illustrator.
GO
Graham_Ormerod
Jan 16, 2007
Dear John,

Yes, I am probably confusing you with my laymen’s terminology – I did not realise what the distinction was between bold and black. I will try Illustrator instead and see how that works.

Many thanks for your advice.

Best regards – Graham
BL
Bob Levine
Jan 16, 2007
Why are you flattening the file? Just save it as a PDF.

Bob

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