Participant

Question

Lightroom CC display issues on second screen

Forum|Forum|6 years ago
February 11, 2020
6 replies
5774 views

I'm using Lightroom CC on Windows 10 and having issues with Lightroom CC and Classic on the external monitor. The display issue is different, depending on which screen I open it on, but no matter which way I do it, there are problems. Thanks in advance for your help, I'm going crazy.

I have done some troubleshooting (below) and I have been trying to get support from Adobe for over a week, but they keep telling me someone will contact me and they never do (I've literally been on chat for over 3 hours today just trying to get a call scheduled). They have indicated this is a common problem for LR as it scales differently than the rest of the suite.

Running Lightroom on Windows 10 on HP Spectre 13", 4k resolution. Connected via display cable to Dell Monitor, 2k resolution. See below for screenshots of what's happening. System info at the end for reference.

Troubleshooting so far

In addition to checking the monitor settings and scaling, I have adjusted the high DPI settings and each change makes it worse.

I have done each of:

[X] Override high DPI scaling behavior. Scaling performed by:

Application: When I did this, the application looked ok on the external monitor, at first. But the cursor was tiny on the laptop and images blurry on both.
System: When I did this, the images were not clear and on the laptop, the image floated as tiny weird little icon and I couldn't interact with it.
System (enhanced): When I did this, the menu items were even larger than without adjustments.

Scenario 1

I open the application on the laptop, and move it over to the monitor. It looks completely out of scale, and the work area is unusable.

Scenario 2

I open the application on the external monitor. Most of it is normal, less the top bar (and anything clicked within it or popped out).

Scenario 2 (still)

After opening LR on the external monitor, if I bring it over to the laptop screen, it looks like this, everything incredibly zoomed out.

After DPI settings changes

Scaling performed by application

After changing the DPI scaling to application, the images were slightly out of focus (as if it still needed to finish loading). Cursors and small items were TINY on the laptop screen. Most was normal on the monitor.

Scaling performed by the system

After changing to system, it was still not focusing on the monitor, and then on the laptop, the image detached from the workspace, but there was no way to interact with it, along with two ribbons at the bottom.

By system, on monitor

By system, on laptop

Scaling performed by system (enhanced)

Similarly to when performed by system, it appeared to work fine on the monitor, but is misbehaving on the laptop.

Classic

I'm having similar issues with Classic (screenshot on monitor).

Detailed system info

Lightroom version: 3.1 [ 20191126-2330-434c343 ] (Nov 27 2019)
NGL Version: 1.11.0.8
Operating system: Windows 10
OS Version: 10.0 [18362]
Application architecture: x64
System architecture: x64
Computer model: HP HP Spectre x360 Convertible 13-ap0xxx / Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-8565U CPU @ 1.80GHz
Logical processor count: 8
Processor speed: 1.9 GHz
Built-in memory: 16121.8 MB
Real memory available to Lightroom: 16121.8 MB
Real memory used by Lightroom: 2492.8 MB (15.4%)
Virtual memory used by Lightroom: 2616.0 MB
Memory cache size: 2122.7 MB
Internal Camera Raw version: 12.1 [ 351 ]
Maximum thread count used by Camera Raw: 5
Camera Raw SIMD optimization: SSE2,AVX,AVX2
Camera Raw virtual memory: 1259MB / 8060MB (15%)
Camera Raw real memory: 1260MB / 16121MB (7%)
System DPI setting: 240 DPI
Desktop composition enabled: Yes
Displays: 1) 3840x2160, 2) 1920x1080
Input types: Multitouch: Yes, Integrated touch: Yes, Integrated pen: Yes, External touch: No, External pen: No, Keyboard: Yes

Graphics Processor Info: DirectX: Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620 (26.20.100.6813)
Graphics Processor Detail: loaded: Yes, supported: Yes, compute: No, init: I2_GPU2, hard: fail_cached_sanity_test, soft: not_checked, wl: No, bl: No
OS Media Capability: true

Application Folder: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Lightroom CC
Settings Folder: C:\Users\jesse\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Lightroom CC
Library Folder: C:\Users\jesse\AppData\Local\Adobe\Lightroom CC\Data

Display 1 (laptop) information

Display 2 (monitor) information

Adapter properties for display 2

This topic has been closed for replies.

D

Derek5E3C

Participant

As a datapoint, as of June 2021 I am having the exact same issues you have described here using a 4K screen on a laptop and a non-4K external monitor. It's very frustrating that this is an issue for what I assume is a very common use case.

T

Taras29071405t1vj

Participant

As another datapoint, it is September 2024 and I'm *still* having this problem, using Lightroom and Photoshop. I am appalled that Adobe knows about this DPI scaling problem but refuses to fix it. I want to use their products on my external screen which is larger and brighter. But the application won't scale. I will try some of the solutions above -- but really, people shouldn't need to be computer scientists to move an Adobe software window from one screen to another. Insane and a black mark on Adobe as a software company.

A

Anonymous

To ensure the best display quality, it's important to use monitors that are properly matched to their resolution and size.

For Full HD (1080p) resolution, we recommend using a 24" monitor.
For 2K resolution, a 27" monitor is ideal.

With the right size and resolution, your monitors will display content clearly at 100% scale. If your external monitors are set as the primary displays, you shouldn't run into any scaling issues.

While Adobe may seem like the source of some display problems, both Microsoft and the display manufacturers play a significant role in this as well.

I know this isn't a solution but this is the only way I was able to put this issue behind me.

K

khdetw

Participant

Thanks for the well researched post Jess. Second monitor with LR Classic has been buggy for me with Windows 10 and multiple monitors as long as I can remember. The exact symptoms vary but it is always unstable, often unusable. Forget about full screen, I've given up on that. Typically it either disappears completely or more often jumps to a different monitor and absulutely refuses to go where I want it. Last upgrade made it worse. It's frustrating paying a monthly fee to Adobe and getting no support for this longstanding critical issue. For example, (expletive deleted) on Adobe chat once suggested "drag and place it where you want it" 😞 Anyway, hope you find a solution - I will try the suggestions here and see if anything works.

J

jessem73872237

Participant

Found the solution to this problem here. The DPI setting needs to be overriden. Once this is done make sure to restart the application.

Best of luck,

Jesse

john544602

Participating Frequently

Yup, this is the solution that worked for me, too. New Windows 11 laptop with Dell external monitor. (June 2023)

Following instructions at the link you provided, I found three choices under "override high DPI scaling behavior"; a little trial-and-error quickly found that "System" was what worked for my setup (rather than "System (Enhanced)".

Thanks for the solution!

J

jessem73872237

Participant

I'm having the exact same issue. My second screen is considerably larger. Having to open it on my second screen if I want to edit but even then the menu bar is huge.

A

Anonymous

I Still have the same problem with Lightroom CC Version 4. Running a 4K SurfaceBook 2 and 2 External 2K Dell Monitors. Wish we would not have to pay for mediocre.