.Net to draw text without outline (Specifically Hiragana)

Question

I am working on a PowerShell script to make images of characters (sort of like flashcards) in bulk.

And I am running into an issue I have seen before, and that is characters look very dirty. For example:

The large character looks good, but I believe this is only because of its size. If I enlarge the text on the right it looks similarly good. But I want the text to be this size.

I have used the following two methods to try and clean up the text, to no effect:

$grph.SmoothingMode.value__ClearTypeGridFit

The other approach that I have used:

$grph.CompositingQuality = [System.Drawing.Drawing2D.CompositingQuality]::HighQuality
$grph.InterpolationMode = [System.Drawing.Drawing2D.InterpolationMode]::HighQualityBicubic
$grph.SmoothingMode = [System.Drawing.Drawing2D.SmoothingMode]::AntiAlias

I believe this is more of an artifact from cleartype fonts than a code issue, but I am looking for help.

The complete script:

• Read CSV File (UTF-8 is supported thanks to LibreOffice)
• For each line in CSV, create the image. This is the Foreach statement that does the image creation.

$List | ForEach-Object {
$Name = $_.Name
$Out = "$Path\$Name.png"

$imgWidth = 270
$imgHeight = 450
$img = New-Object System.Drawing.Bitmap $imgWidth, $imgHeight
$fontK = New-Object System.Drawing.Font "Meiryo", 85

$FontAll = New-Object System.Drawing.Font Meiryo, 35

$BrushBG = [System.Drawing.Brushes]::Transparent
$BrushFG = [System.Drawing.Brushes]::Lime

$grph = [System.Drawing.Graphics]::FromImage($img)

$grph.CompositingQuality = [System.Drawing.Drawing2D.CompositingQuality]::HighQuality
$grph.InterpolationMode = [System.Drawing.Drawing2D.InterpolationMode]::HighQualityBicubic
$grph.SmoothingMode = [System.Drawing.Drawing2D.SmoothingMode]::AntiAlias

$grph.FillRectangle($BrushBG,0,0,$img.Width,$img.Height)

$kanji = $_.kanji
$grph.DrawString([String]$kanji, [System.Drawing.Font]$fontK, $BrushFG, [int]0,[int]0)

$kun = $_.kunyomi
$fontOn = New-Object System.Drawing.Font "Meiryo", 36
$kunWidth = [System.Windows.Forms.TextRenderer]::MeasureText($kun, $fontOn) 
$kunLeft = $imgWidth - $kunWidth.Width
$grph.DrawString([String]$kun, [System.Drawing.Font]$fontOn, $BrushFG, [int]$kunLeft,[int]0)

$pKun = $_.pronounceKun
$pKunSize = [System.Windows.Forms.TextRenderer]::MeasureText($pKun, $fontOn) 
$pKunLeft = $imgWidth - $pKunSize.Width
$grph.DrawString([String]$pKun, [System.Drawing.Font]$fontOn, $BrushFG, $pKunLeft,$kunWidth.Height)

$grph.Dispose()
$img.Save($Out)

Write-Output $Name, $ony
}

I removed the code for parts of the image not shown, but it is essentially duplicate code.

How can I make the hiragana ひ　and the "hi" not have theat black jagged outline?

Answer 1

I found what I needed to do.

I needed to use the System.Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint to add the clarity I wanted.

I played with removing the other sampling / aliasing information and it appeared with it I maintained a slightly better image.

The code for quality is now:

$grph = [System.Drawing.Graphics]::FromImage($img)

$grph.CompositingQuality = [System.Drawing.Drawing2D.CompositingQuality]::HighQuality
$grph.InterpolationMode = [System.Drawing.Drawing2D.InterpolationMode]::HighQualityBicubic
$grph.SmoothingMode = [System.Drawing.Drawing2D.SmoothingMode]::AntiAlias
$grph.TextRenderingHint = [System.Drawing.Text.TextRenderingHint]::AntiAlias

And the output looks like: