: Non-contiguous stroke (pixels touching diagonally) in Photoshop I need to make a few custom subtitle bitmaps for a DVD. The trouble is that DVDs support only 3 colours, which gives me one colour

@Hamaas979

Posted in: #AdobePhotoshop #AntiAliasing #ColorIndexing #Stroke

I need to make a few custom subtitle bitmaps for a DVD. The trouble is that DVDs support only 3 colours, which gives me one colour for letters, one for anti-aliasing and one for outline.

What I've done is typeset the text white on black background, converted the image to 3-colour indexed mode, then selected the background (Magic Wand with zero tolerance), inverted the selection to get letters plus anti-aliasing, and applied 1 px stroke.

Now, the letters with anti-aliasing actually look half decent, considering the constraints, but the outline gives the whole thing an ugly squarish look.

I then took a closer look at some retail DVD subs and, among heaps of absolute abomination, found a specific type of rendering that manages to minimize the visual weight of the outline. It's hard to describe it, but unlike the usual Stroke in Photoshop, which makes all pixels fully touch, this draws them with only corners touching on non-straight lines.

So, the question is, is it possible to get this effect in Photoshop?

Here's a close-up of the comparison, with a few of the differences pointed out. Open the pic in a new tab to see it at actual size.

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