How does it work?

I'd think that would be the best option if you don't mind tiny text or icons.

 

There is not a big difference between 1440x900 (HiDPI) and 2880x1800 since both output the same number of pixels. The HiDPI (Best for Retina) will however use higher-resolution bitmaps for the UI taking more RAM/VRAM but I doubt this will really make a difference since the number of pixels is the same and there is no scaling process.

The real difference is when you go to 1680x1050 (HiDPI) or 1920x1200 (HiDPI) since those output at higher resolutions before they are downscaled. 3360x2100 and 3840x2400, respectively. I don't know if the downscaling process takes significant resources, I think it's mostly the number of pixels being outputed that matters.

 

The UI in Photoshop and the other Adobe applications looks fine at the native resolution. Lots of work area too That said Photoshop does sometimes have problems displaying an image properly and you cannot accurately judge the quality of the image you are working on without working at the actual pixels zoom level or messing around with other zoom levels. I haven't experienced this running at native res though, so it might only be a problem when you have the display running in scaled mode. But Photoshop should be updated soon, dunno about the other apps.

 

unless you're fine with extremely tiny text and UI elements, using 2880 natively on a 15" screen is just silly.

 

also if you're using the best for retina, with photoshop not updated, is OSX scaling the pixels of the image? so if photoshop says you're displaying at 100% zoom, on a normal monitor it would be a 1:1 pixel map, but on the retina it's not.. correct it's actually scaling? If so I would not want to work on images in photoshop unless I was in 2880x1800 native.

 

If you're running the display in the "Best" scaled mode, Photoshop thinks it a has 1440x900 resolutions screen to work with. So each pixel of an image that Photoshop draws is pixel doubled, meaning that one pixel shown on screen is really 4 pixels on the Retina display. And that's what can make images look weird in zoom levels other than actual pixels. I've seen this happen a few times when working in Photoshop in the scaled modes. I use the computer at native res now and problem solved.

And NP

 

Great thanks, I'll plan to use photoshop in 2880x1800 once my rMBP arrives

 

Yeah I love working like that. It's great.

 

You're welcome! I was curious too so I looked it up a while ago haha

 

Yupp, it's definitively usable for now and I can wait for the update to be released whenever.