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iPhone app navigation icons: anti-aliasing

I may be overlooking something, but the "anti-aliasing" means nothing to me.

You're going to make 30 x 30 pixel (72 PPI) graphics.

Pixels is pixels.

Take a look at your example at normal size and enlarged.

Someone might say that the edges of the icons are anti-aliased, but in reality it's just a gray pixel sitting next to a black or white pixel easing the transition and creating the effect of a smooth edge.
 

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citizenzen said:
Someone might say that the edges of the icons are anti-aliased, but in reality it's just a gray pixel sitting next to a black or white pixel easing the transition and creating the effect of a smooth edge.
Click to expand...


Isn't "easing the transition and creating the effect of a smooth edge" practically the definition of anti-aliasing? The icons in that attachment are definitely anti-aliased. Whether or not the client even knows what means is a different matter. They may very well want the icons to look like what's in that attachment but don't realize that those gray pixels are anti-aliasing.

To the OP: I know very little about programming outside the web world, but I don't think it would be possible for the iphone's os to anti-alias the icons later. I think that anti-aliasing requires a high resolution sample to begin with –i.e. the iphone would have to know that the single pixel line making up the rotor in the aliased version was really referring to something that is narrower than a single pixel and would therefore make it a single line of grayer pixels.
 
panoz7 said:
Isn't "easing the transition and creating the effect of a smooth edge" practically the definition of anti-aliasing?
Click to expand...

That's my understanding.

I don't think the OP's client really understand what it means. To have icons without any anti-aliasing would give you the effect below.

Perhaps they're going for an old-school "Atari" look.
 

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Unless the art is prepared as vector graphics (and likely it will be), you will want it to be antialiased.

What the client may be trying to convey is that the art should not transition from white to black pixels (reminiscent of 8-bit GIF).

If the art is prepared really large and saved as PNG-24 with transparency, antialiasing will be various levels of transparency rather than colors. This way the same art can be placed on multiple backgrounds.

Start with a good consultation. It minimizes going over budget.
 
Kwill said:
Start with a good consultation. It minimizes going over budget.
Click to expand...

Thank for the advice. The person I'm corresponding with is not a technical person: I should have insisted on talking directly with the programmers. Live and learn!
 
Kwill said:
If the art is prepared really large and saved as PNG-24 with transparency, antialiasing will be various levels of transparency rather than colors. This way the same art can be placed on multiple backgrounds.
Click to expand...

Do you have straightforward instructions as to how to do this using Photoshop?

I have my anti-aliased art on one layer, with nothing else around it (gray and white check). What else do I need to do before saving as a PNG-24?
 
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