SHARPER PICTURES
FOR WAP PHONES

GETTING RID OF THE JAGGIES
in tiny two-colour graphics for older mobile phones

Here are some extremely small two-colour icon-sized images created in different ways.

When you're making tiny black-and-white phone images, you'll probably agree the hand drawn images make the meaning clearer. This is particularly important for display on ancient phone screens, where 'black and white' can still sometimes mean smudge grey and sludge green!

You'll also notice that the text on every image has a bad case of the jaggies. It looks ragged. You can't get sharper pictures because the graphics are saved with only two colours. You need shades of grey to soften the edges.

I've included the lettering to show what happens to text when shown as a graphic. Actually it isn't a good idea to add much lettering to a mobile phone picture message, even though the long, low format is made for displaying text. Maybe a few-letter word or two on a greeting, but no more. Text sent as a graphic shows badly on older phones and is a waste of space. Text sent as - well, as text - is faster and cheaper too.

Black and white line drawings and lettering at most but the very tiniest sizes look sharper when scanned at the greyscale ('black-and-white photo') setting on your scanner. I edited and produced a professional cartoonists' news rag for two years, and naturally had to scan a lot of cartoons. Even the simplest line drawings looked better at photo setting.

BUT - when you haven't got any grey pixels to soften the lines, antialiasing - removing the jaggies from slants and curves - is difficult. Especially when you get down to the area of an image for an older mobile phone. Slanting lines resemble flights of steps. Italics look particularly gap-toothed!

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Photoshop (or Elements) 'Save for Web' is excellent for handling small images both black and white and in colour.

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Making tiny black-and-white phone images

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