When one changes the screen resolution in a retina iMac, will all resolutions look as crispy as the standard? On my mid 2010 iMac, which isn’t retina, only one resolution will look as crispy!
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Crispy screen resolution
- Thread starter zoran
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It‘s the same for every screen. The native resolution is cripsy, others won‘t look as good in comparison.
I was hoping that was not true 🙁. The squinting issue in indesign or premiere in order to see values is terrible!!!!
Please tell me more about your squinting issue. Is everything so small or what are you struggling with?
cmaier
Suspended
Every lcd panel has a certain number of pixels. That’s the only resolution that has zero compromises. Every other resolution either introduces aliasing/interpolation or, at least, pixel multiplying.
Every value is so small, that one needs binoculars to work 😀, and then again, when loweringthe screen resolution so things become larger, it all becomes blurry!
This is so annoying and unable to work with!
Are there any options to change the font size of those values in the preferences of the apps? 🙂
The other resolutions use non-integer scaling which (a) isn't quite as pin-sharp as the standard 2x mode and (b) puts some extra load on the GPU (but that's not a big issue on a model with a half-decent GPU).
However - all of those resolutions will look much sharper than your non-retina display* in its native mode and night-and-day better than your non-retina display trying to display a non-native resolution (which usually looks awful - if that's what you're worrying about, don't).
Can't guarantee anything for inDesign (the default res is just about the 'sweet spot' for most Mac software) but (unless Adobe have done anything daft like not properly supporting retina), one of the scaled modes should make the controls larger without the sort of blurriness that causes on standard def.
* E.g. the "looks like 1600x900" scaled resolution - the 'lowest' on offer without tweaks - isn't 1600x900 - its 3200x1800 with double-sized text re-scaled to 5k (...in broad strokes. I've never seen a detailed description of how it works and its possible that MacOS is actually even smarter than that), so it starts off with more detail than your 1440p and, while the up-scaling to 5k creates a few 'artifacts' the 5k screen is fine enough to mostly hide them.
mj_
macrumors 68000
I agree with @theluggage. It will not look as crisp and sharp as the native 2x resolution that happens to be exactly half the Retina panel's native resolution but it will still look A LOT better than on non-Retina low DPI screens. Even than the native resolution of any given low DPI screen. I run all my Retina screens in scaled resolutions and the difference between that and a non-Retina screen at optimum resolution is like night and day.
Moonjumper
macrumors 68030
As theluggage says, the non-integer scaling isn't as good as the standard mode, but is still very good. Far better than on the OP's non-retina screen. I played around the the scaling modes a lot when I had a retina MacBook Pro to get as much working space as possible, but ended up back at the default because it was the right size for text readability, not because of scaling issues. I have never felt the need to play around with my iMac as I have a reasonable workspace on the 27" screen, but did test them as I explored my new machine. All were fine, just not quite as good as standard 2x.
One extra point about reading values in indesign and premiere, they will be lessened even at the same size because the text will be more cleanly defined.
One extra point about reading values in indesign and premiere, they will be lessened even at the same size because the text will be more cleanly defined.