Are there any issues with Photoshop on 4K 27" monitor using Mac Studio?

Forum|Forum|3 years ago
January 6, 2023
3 replies
1659 views

I have a Mac Studio on order and an Eizo 4k 27" monitor.

My major use will be photo editing using Lightroom and Photoshop, and plugins.

I have heard about sclaing issues between MacOS and 4K monitors.

I have read that "a typical 4K screen, which is 3840×2160 pixels @ 16:9 aspect ratio. MacOS sees this screen and defaults it to a “HiDPI” mode of 1920×1080. If it rendered at the native 3840×2160, on the typical ~27-inch 4K display, the UI elements and text would be much too small for most people’s liking.

The solution is to choose a HiDPI resolution of 2560×1440 in macOS. What this does is render the desktop at 5120×2880 internally and then scale it down (60 times per second) to the native panel resolution of 2840×2160. Here, the resulting image does not look “blurry and uneven” and it looks significantly better than a lower dpi screen with a native 2560×1440 panel."

And also that - "macOS scales Photoshop bitmaps using bilinear interpolation, causing all visible pixels to be degraded and hiding their true character. This messes with the process of working out optimal sharpening. What we need for that is to have all bitmap user images to be shown as one image pixel per screen pixel when we're zoomed to "100%". And sadly, in macOS, that's only possible when we're using one of those scalings: native or half native."

I don't undertsand the bitmap issue. I am rather concerned that I will have issues working with PS 24.1 and LR Classic 12.1 with my new setup. Can anyone clarify or advise?

macOS

This topic has been closed for replies.

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

Hi, to be really clear on this resolution issue I'd want to ask Apple.

The statement "macOS scales Photoshop bitmaps using bilinear interpolation, causing all visible pixels to be degraded and hiding their true character. This messes with the process of working out optimal sharpening. What we need for that is to have all bitmap user images to be shown as one image pixel per screen pixel when we're zoomed to "100%". And sadly, in macOS, that's only possible when we're using one of those scalings: native or half native."

is referring to assessing image files when sharpening, in order to see the image clearly it should be viewed at 100% as set in Photoshop.

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net - adobe forum volunteer - co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

M

mickfishAuthor

Known Participant

Thank you Neil for this clarification. I will still have to find how to view at 100% at the "native" or "half native" scaling".

I will certianly looking at the reosurces in your colour management site. By the way are you a Mac user?

Mike

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

Hi Mike, yes I'm a Mac user have been for a ver long time,.

You're looking for Photoshop's percentage setting it's at the bottom left of the main window, see screenshot below

see that 50% - that’s my current view size, if I click command (prezel) and the + or - keys the size jumps between preset options.

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net - adobe forum volunteer - co-author: 'getting colour right'
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

D Fosse

Community Expert

Thank you, Trevor. Although I don't do Mac, I don't think there's going to be any problems in Photoshop or Lightroom. Both screens will have similar pixel density anyway.

In Windows you would just set a scaling factor for the interface in the operating system, and PS/Lr pick that up automatically. The image display is not affected by this - it's handled separately.