This post is going to get slightly technical, but I will try to keep it readable. This should also go in the computers forum, but it's the Spam Thread.
Lately, I decided to look at the settings for how Mac OSX handles font smoothing. I learned that before OSX v10.6, there were several options for smoothing fonts, like "Standard - Best for CRT", Light, Medium (default for LCDs), and Dark. But in 10.6, those options were removed for a simple "Use LCD Font Smoothing When Available".
One main reason why I wanted to see if there were any additional settings for Mac OSX font smoothing was this post from Grapes...
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I noticed the font rendering on her Mac looked slightly different...lighter, so to speak. I then got around to searching about OSX Font smoothing and the various options that are available. Even though OSX 10.6 and higher removed the UI for changing the font smoothing to, say, light, I found that you can execute a terminal command for changing the settings more thoroughly than the prefs pane that comes with OSX 10.6+.
I also later found some sort of tool called "TinkerTool" that allows font smoothing to be changed the way it was pre v10.6, as well as a myriad of other user-specific settings for programs like iTunes, Safari, QuickTime, etc. That is how I decided to test out the "light" font smoothing options.
Below are two screenshots, one with my normal font smoothing (Medium, the default), and the other with "Light". Compare the two, and you will notice an oddity I found with it....
"Medium - Best for LCD" (default)
"Light"
Look at the bolded text under the weather map in the second picture. This is with "Light" font smoothing enabled and for some reason, it makes bold text look much bolder than it should be. The boldness of the fonts looks more balanced when set on "Medium".
Light font rendering actually looks nicer somewhat than the defaults on Lilly's HP monitor, but Im not sure why it makes the bold text look over bold.
As for TinkerTool...it's nothing special. It's just a frontend for terminal commands you can execute to, say, turn the 3D Dock into a 2D one, have QuickTime X automatically play movies when loaded, and whatnot. I only used TinkerTool to access the GUI for font smoothing, and didn't use it to change anything else. I still had it revert the settings to a pre TinkerTool state before I removed it though just to be entirely safe.
EDIT: Replaced images with higher quality ones...the font rendering differences should be more clearer now.