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Participating Frequently
January 18, 2017
Question

Need a true 1:1 view in Lightroom regardless of scaled resolution

  • January 18, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 741 views

I recently started using Lightroom 6 on a new 15 inch MacBook Pro with retina display. I prefer using the scaled 1680x1050 resolution rather than "best for retina" 1440x900, because I can fit more on the screen. As some may know, the display's native resolution is 2880x1400 pixels, and using the 1680x1050 scaled resolution upscales everything to 3360x2100 before fitting it into the display's native resolution.

However, when I view photos in Lightroom, the photo window is showing the photos in a scaled 3360x2100 resolution, rather than the displays native resolution. This is problematic because when I do a 1:1 view, I am not getting as close-up a view as I would if Lightroom were using the display's native 2880x1800 resolution to display the photo. In order to get a 1:1 view with the native resolution, I have to use the "best for retina" 1440x900 resolution, which doesn't work well for me.

This issue was also brought up in a 2014 post here, but was left unanswered.

My understanding is that Lightroom should be able to use the scaled resolution (user's choice) for the various controls and menus, while using the display's native resolution for the window that shows the photo itself. Can anyone confirm if this is correct? And if so, please implement this feature into Lightroom, Adobe!

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1 reply

Ian Lyons
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 18, 2017

IMO, your observations are correct. I'll bring your post to the attention of the engineering team. Hopefully, they'll give more credence to your post than they did mine.

jlhopes16Author
Participating Frequently
January 19, 2017

I also realized that the same is true in Photoshop. I was very surprised to see this, but then I tried Apple's Photos app, and the same is true there, too. When I have the display scaled to 1680x1050, a "100%" view shows the photo as though the display were actually 3360x2100.

So, maybe it's not possible to use the native resolution when the display resolution is scaled. This would makes sense if the resolution scaling is the last thing that happens after the screen image has been rendered. If so, that's too bad, and for me, it makes the retina display less appealing. My old 1680x1050 antiglare was much simpler!