PS cc and 30 bit

[Ed_Engberg]

When will PS CC have  30 bit capability? I know PS CS6 does have it so it is puzzling why PS CC does not.

[Todd Shaner]

I received a reply back from NEC Display Technical Support corporate team. The NEC PA272w monitor is displaying the data as output from the graphics adapter (i.e. with banding). This indicates the issue is being caused by an OpenGL incompatibility with Photoshop's Zoom scaling routine. I did a clean install with the latest version 347.25 Nvidia  drivers with no change.

Why it's only occurring at 63% and lower Zoom settings only Adobe can figure out, but at 63% Zoom setting a one (1) pixel transparent border appears around the image. At any Zoom setting above 63% this border does NOT appear. That should be a clue as to what's causing the OpenGL 30 bit display support failure!

[Todd Shaner]

So what photo editors support 30 bit display mode and actually work? I just downloaded Zoner Photo Studio 17 free trial, which is available for Windows only. Once you enable 10-bit color depth in Settings> Preferences> Advanced and restart the application it works at ANY Zoom setting in the 'Editor' tab with no banding.

That said it's not an application I would use, but serves the purpose of proving there is nothing wrong with my system or monitor concerning support of 10 bit/color. The ball is back in Adobe's court....but I'm not holding my breath on a fix for PS CS6.

[Semaphoric]

Just another little oddity to toss in: if I open the ramp.psd in CS6, viewing any one channel in isolation shows banding, but any combination of channels does not.

[D Fosse]

I've been thinking of replacing my Radeon with a FirePro, but I get the feeling it's not really worth the trouble.

Especially not with a hardware-calibrated unit like an NEC PA or Eizo CG/CX, where the 8 bits are utilized fully, coming out of a high bit monitor LUT. It might be a different matter for a video card-calibrated display, where the 8 bits are used to perform the actual adjustments. Here banding is a very real concern.

And to be honest I'm not really ready for the ugly Basic mode in Win 7 (sans Aero). I make my living through aesthetic considerations, and these things matter when I have to look at it for ten hours a day...

[Todd Shaner]

twenty_one wrote:

I've been thinking of replacing my Radeon with a FirePro, but I get the feeling it's not really worth the trouble.

Especially not with a hardware-calibrated unit like an NEC PA or Eizo CG/CX, where the 8 bits are utilized fully, coming out of a high bit monitor LUT. It might be a different matter for a video card-calibrated display, where the 8 bits are used to perform the actual adjustments. Here banding is a very real concern.

Agreed. If you software-calibrate a 10 bit/color capable monitor using the graphics card's LUT all bets are off concerning reducing visible banding.

What I find ironic is that 16 bit/color printer drivers are available for Mac OS X, but no support for 10 bit/color display. Windows 7 & 8 supports 10 bit/color display path, but there are no 16 bit/color printer drivers available! As a design engineer with experience in building real-time graphics systems for NASA in the 1970s this is a sad state of affairs!

twenty_one wrote:

And to be honest I'm not really ready for the ugly Basic mode in Win 7 (sans Aero). I make my living through aesthetic considerations, and these things matter when I have to look at it for ten hours a day...

Nvida Quadro graphics adapters do NOT require disabling Windows Aero mode. In fact that was one of the issue I had trying to get 10 bit/color to work on my Windows 7 system with PS CS6. I had set the desktop to one of the "Basic" non-Aero modes and it disables 30 bit display support mode in PS CS6! At least that's the case with my PNY Nvida Quadro 600 card.

I'm not sure how much value a 10 bit/color display is unless you also have 16 bit/color printing capability. If that's NOT the case then you really want to be using 8 bit/color display bit depth same as your printer.

The biggest benefit of 30 bit capable monitors is in using an internal 12-14 bit monitor LUT for calibration to prevent quantization errors that may cause banding. In addition the 30 bit monitor's native 8/bit/color panel will have no issues with temporal dithering when viewing 8/bit color images, compared to 8/bit color monitors that use 6 bit/color + FRC panels.

To be honest I've reviewed my LR catalog for raw images that show gradient banding and haven't found one yet. I even tried some extreme LR Developsettings. We know LR only supports 8 bit/color display path so banding should be visible in some images, right? If anyone has a raw image file with obvious banding (not due to highlight clipping) they can post for download I'd appreciate it!

[Semaphoric]

It's hard to be sure just what is going on, since the Histogram and Info panels only show the eight most significant bits.

[Todd Shaner]

The Info panel can be set  8, 16, and 32 bit, but that wont let you see the actual graphics adapter display data. Windows Print Screen (CTRL + Prt Scr keys) frame buffer is only 24 bits so that's no help either.

Without special test equipment the only way to confirm 30 bit display mode is "visually" with something like the Ramp.psd file.

[Todd Shaner]

Semaphoric wrote:

Just another little oddity to toss in: if I open the ramp.psd in CS6, viewing any one channel in isolation shows banding, but any combination of channels does not.

On my Windows 7 system with Nvidia Quadro 600 graphics adapter NO banding is visible when viewing single-channels (Red, Green, Blue). So clearly there are differences in how PS behaves depending on graphics adapter used (AMD FirePro versus Nividia Quadro). I am sure this is also the case for WIndows 7 versus Windows 8.x versions.

[Klaus AUT]

Hi there,

any news on this topic?

Who of you already tried the GPU support for Lightroom CC / 6? Does it work for you?

For me (and many others) not, just like the 30 bit in PS. So I wonder if there might be a link between these two issues - some wrong usage/interpretation of OpenGL by Adobe? Because in LR the OpenGL fails, which should be the case only for old cards not supporting OpenGL 3.3. My card however supports OpenGL 4.4, and OpenGL tests that I made with a test program finished all at 100% ok.

So, maybe a problem of OpenGL support is a common issue here? (while for me the lack of GPU support in LR is honestly a bigger problem, than 30 bit in PS)...

[Todd Shaner]

Please see this post by Adobe Engineer Eric Chan:

https://forums.adobe.com/message/7472605#7472605

The suggestions at this post are primarily for AMD graphics cards with numerous suggestion. Driver update or using an older version has helped AMD card users. I'm using an Nvidia Quadro 600 GPU and it is detected and turned on in LR CC 2015. Unfortunately it seems to make things slower...not faster. See my post in the same thread:

Re: OpenGL Failure in Lightroom CC

Concerning 30 bit color support: I still have the same issue with PS CS6 where it reverts to 24 bit color when Zoom view is <64% (i.e. 50%, 25%, etc.), but does work at 64% and higher. With PS CC 2014 I can NOT get 30 bit color to work at all on my Windows 7 64 bit SP1 system.

[Klaus AUT]

Thanks for your input, trshaner! I was already aware of this latest advice as interim solution from another, very similar thread. However this is not valid for me, as FirePro cards use different drivers than the "mass market" Radeon cards. (And I tried with older driver with no success).

Also I already read that some things might be even slower in LR with GPU support switched on. Would still be interesting to check it on my system. Just like you I have no serious performance issues right now, beside some photos with a lot of stamp cloning, gradients etc. But as soon as LR will have to deal with 5DS R files in the future, situation might change...

However, I did not want to hijack this thread for LR topics now! Just saw a potential common reason for the issues.

[Erik_Rufelt]

From the following page: https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop-cs6-gpu-faq1.html

The last point under "GPU/OpenGL preferences in Photoshop CC and CC 2014" says:

"Note: 30-bit display is not functioning correctly with current drivers. We are working to address this issue as soon as possible"

[Todd Shaner]

Erik, it's been two days since you posted with no replies. I've given up on 30bit color support for PS due to no solution and issues with the DisplayPort connection on my NEC PA272w monitor. About every 3-4 wakes from sleep mode the monitor will not turn on and I have to manually push its power button ON/OFF. With a dual-link DVI connection the monitor behaves properly and NEC Tech Support has been unable to find a solution. I can use 30-bit color mode with other applications, just not any Adobe applications. I noticed my Nvidia Quadro 600 graphics card is not on the PS CC CC2014 Tested List, but it is on the PS CS6 Tested List. I bought this card specifically for 30bit color support with PS CS6 and it only half-works (>63% Zoom View).

[Pictus_171]

Trshaner,

Try to edit the Display EDID, it may fix the sleep mode.

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/t/19629524

http://nvidia.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3569/~/managing-a-display-edid-on-windows

[Todd Shaner]

Thank you Pictus 171 for the EDID suggestion. If Adobe "fixes" CC 2014 30bit support it may be a good solution for the DisplayPort wake issue. I know Chris Cox keeps saying it works for some users, but not on my Windows 7, Quadro 600, with a new NEC PA272w monitor. 30bit color does work with non-Adobe applications so there's nothing more I can do on my end to "fix" it.

[helmutk41814071]

Hi there,

i purchased a EIZO CS 270 and WIN 10 64 bit, PS and LR CC.

I would like to work in a 10bit Workflow. What Graphiccard shoul i use? I could not find any new reviews about 10 bit/Channel.
Does a Quadro K420 supprt 10bit/Channel?

[jbm007]

10-bit per color support on NVIDIA Geforce GPUs | NVIDIA

[Erik_Rufelt]

I seem to get 30-bit color in CC 2015, with the same problems as you for the zoom level, doesn't work at 50%. Also it only works when no popup or similar is covering the image, like folding out the history bar breaks it, but that's documented by Nvidia that desktop composition doesn't work in Windows 7.

I tried it in Windows 10 preview and the popup composition problem is gone there, as the Windows desktop has switched to a 16 bit per channel floating point format I believe, but the Photoshop zoom has the same problem. 30-bit also seems kinda shaky in general... grayscale images for example seem to never get 30-bit color.

[Todd Shaner]

Erik Rufelt wrote:

I seem to get 30-bit color in CC 2015, with the same problems as you for the zoom level, doesn't work at 50%.

Actually I was seeing the break-point at 63% and below, At 54% and above 30bit color mode was working with PS CS6, but not at all with PS CC2014. I haven't tried it with PS CC2015 because I'm back to using a DVI cable due to a DisplayPort wake issue with my NEV PA272w.

Erik Rufelt wrote:

Also it only works when no popup or similar is covering the image, like folding out the history bar breaks it, but that's documented by Nvidia that desktop composition doesn't work in Windows 7.

I found that using the Marquee tool on the image will also cause it to revert to 24 bit mode (8 bit/color).

Erik Rufelt wrote:

30-bit also seems kinda shaky in general... grayscale images for example seem to never get 30-bit color.

Never tried it with a grayscale image. Did you try testing the Ramp.psd RGB test file converted to grayscale?

[Marco_Ristuccia]

Hi guys,

After a lot of reading and testing I have found a solution for the 30 bit problem of PS CC 2015. Here it is:
- open the PS CC color settings (Edit->Color Settings)

- change the color engine (item "Engine") from "Adobe (ACE)" to "Microsoft ICM".

There it is, on my PC with a nVidia Quadro K2000 it worked like a charm. At every zoom factor the grey gradient is finally smooth!!!

Probably it is not a final solution, don't know how PS CC behaves by using the SO color engine instead of its native one, it could have other drawbacks, but at least we have a fast way to "proof" the image with 30 bit color.

Let me know if this works for you too.

[Todd Shaner]

Marco, thank you for the feedback. Looks like a trade-off of color accuracy for 30 bit color:

ICM vs ACE | The Last Word

I've switched back to using a DL-DVI cable because my NEC PA272W sometimes will not wake from sleep mode when connected via a DisplayPort cable. Believe me I've tried everything and wasted way too much time including discussions with NEC Tech Support concerning both issues (30 bit color, DisplayPort Wake). I've yet to see an actual camera image in PS that shows banding so not sure I'm missing anything at this point with only 24 bit color.

[jbm007]

Here is a dirty little secret.

Windows 8, Win 8.1, and Windows 10 do not and all MAC OSes do not; I repeat do not support 30 bit output.

Windows 7 is the only OS that did and Aero needed to be disabled to do so. I believe Linux also supports 30 bit color output.

All the marketing hype from the Video card mfg and TV mfg is great; the problem is there is no way to get 30 bit output with the current OS es.

Sorry to burst everybody's bubble.

Sad but true.  You still using windows 7 you are still in luck.

Jim

[Todd Shaner]

jbm007 how did you confirm Windows 8 and 10 do not support 30 bit color? Try using the below NEC 10 bit demo app or download the free Zoner Photo Studio trial.

30 bit color mode works on my Windows 7 64 bit system with PS CS6, but only at 64%-100% view. It doesn't work at all with PS CC2015 so even with Windows 7 there are still issues! It works with no issues using Zoner Photo Studio and the NEC 10 bit color demo app, which confirms my system configuration fully supports 30 bit color. 

Zoner Photo Studio 17 free trial

http://www.necdisplay.com/documents/Software/NEC_10_bit_video_Windows_demo.zip

Adobe still has this posted:

Photoshop GPU troubleshooting FAQ

Photoshop CC, Photoshop CC 2014, and Photoshop CC 2015

Note: 30-bit display is not functioning correctly with current drivers. We are working to address this issue as soon as possible

[jbm007]

Don't care what they indicate; Windows 8, 8.1, 10 OS only support 8 bit output.

There is no OpenGL path to 30 bits on windows 8 or 8.1 or 10.  And currently PS uses OpenGL on both windows, and mac.

The only way to get deep color past the compositing is with a full screen directX surface which is not used by professional applications.

[Todd Shaner]

So MS Windows 8 & 10 is following in the footsteps of Apple OS X? It doesn't surprise me! What's funny (or sad) is that this is very analogous to what happened to audio technology (aka music). We went from analog LP records, 16 bit CDs, 24 bit SA-DVD, and now lossy MP3 is the most used format. It wouldn't surprise me if photography follows the same path with camera manufacturers dropping raw file format support in the next 10-20 years.