I was playing around with Photoshop CS4 and came across an odd setting. I’m not even sure what the default setting usually is, but for me it was my first time dealing with non-pixel perfect blurry rectangles in Photosohp and it really threw me for a loop. Below you can see two 60 pixel boxes created with the rectangle tool. Both boxes look the same, but upon further inspection you will see that the right box has blurry edges and the left box is pixel perfect and sharp.

Here are the two boxes zoomed to 300%.

What the $#%??

This is enough to drive any web designer mad and I don’t really know what possible use the non pixel perfect box would have, but maybe that’s because I’m a web designer and I like clean straight edges and lines. Luckily this setting is super easy to turn off. Select the Rectangle tool then at the top of Photoshop click on the little arrow which will open the Geometry options for the rectangle. If you selected the Rectangle tool, you should be seeing the dialogue below.

Select the Snap to Pixels option and now you will have clean pixel perfect rectangles. This option is also available for the Rounded Rectangle tool. No more blurry edges.