Retina Screens

gibtheo

gibtheo

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Steven
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Just got a new MBP with a retina display. It's great. However, now lots of stuff on the internet, in applications (photoshop etc) and other random stuff looks really crap!

I understand that this is because most of this stuff was not made to be viewed on a retina display, is this true? So, I am just going to have to put up with my current applications looking crap till I upgrade them? And also put up with certain websites looking sketchy till they sort themselves out? Even the 'talk photography' logo top left of this page looks blurry! (sorry guys!)

My other problem, is now I realise that some images and parts of my website look crap on a retina display! Anyone had these issues? Is this because most of the images on the site were 'save for web and devices' and obviously that is now too low res?

Any help or advice would be much appreciated!
 
Old stuff will look off. Think about it - you are trying to blow up a few pixels worth of image 3-4 times, and also the way OSX handles this process... Most new software will look spot on, but some may still be left in the last century. The websites.... there is again the same issue of too small images for your screen. It should be trivial to bring it up to date by modernising codebase (update theme, etc) and uploading bigger images.

P.S. If site looks bad on MBP, then it looks just as bad on iPads and possibly other tablets. Thats a big chunk of your customers and therefore not great news
 
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Can you turn of the rescaling effect? I have a Dell with QHD screen (higher res than Retina) and everything looks better on that than on any other monitor.
 
It's not the retina screen making things look crap, it's the rescaling of the software. As the resolution is too high for such a small screen, it has to be rescaled to a decent size. This is why a retina screen on a laptop is not really a great thing, and more of a marketing move than a necessity (as you've found out). They're just too small to run at native resolution.

If you can turn scaling off, things will improve, although things will then look incredibly small.
 
boliston said:
QHD is 2560x1440 and MBP retina is 2560x1600 (13") or 2880x1800 (15") - what size is your dell?
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I believe teh Dell's screen is 3200x1800
 
Pookeyhead said:
It's not the retina screen making things look crap, it's the rescaling of the software. As the resolution is too high for such a small screen, it has to be rescaled to a decent size. This is why a retina screen on a laptop is not really a great thing, and more of a marketing move than a necessity (as you've found out). They're just too small to run at native resolution.

If you can turn scaling off, things will improve, although things will then look incredibly small.
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so you suggest 1280x800 was better? No way in frozen hell. All that needs to happen is some software and website updates, 98+% is already there and available.
 
daugirdas said:
so you suggest 1280x800 was better? No way in frozen hell. All that needs to happen is some software and website updates, 98+% is already there and available.
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1280x800? What the hell were you using before you got the MBP? Not seen anything that crappy for years.
 
Pookeyhead said:
1280x800? What the hell were you using before you got the MBP? Not seen anything that crappy for years.
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that's the previous version of 13" MBP (still on sale) for your information. Crappy indeed.
 
daugirdas said:
that's the previous version of 13" MBP (still on sale) for your information. Crappy indeed.
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Sorry. but being a Mac doesn't excuse it. That's a shockingly crap screen resolution.
 
Pookeyhead said:
Sorry. but being a Mac doesn't excuse it. That's a shockingly crap screen resolution.
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I agree, blimey, even my 8 year old Dell Studio is 1920x1080!!
Surely that resolution is a typo?
 
boliston said:
QHD is 2560x1440 and MBP retina is 2560x1600 (13") or 2880x1800 (15") - what size is your dell?
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Sorry - should have said QHD+. 3840x2160 Dell XPS15 9530.

Stu Blackpool said:
I agree, blimey, even my 8 year old Dell Studio is 1920x1080!!
Surely that resolution is a typo?
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Stewart, 1280 X 800 is actually OK on a 13" screen for low res work, though those Apple screens were really poor for viewing angles and colour consistency
 
I'm surprised you say photoshop looks rubbish. It looks wonderful for me. Which version are you using?

Likewise sites that use retina enabled coding look absolutely amazing.

Having installed another two MBP retina over the weekend I haven't noticed a bad looking app, other than virtual box at all actually.
 
If you're running those sorts of resolutions in Windows I believe there are some Adobe-supplied reg hacks that make it look better in PS. It was mentioned in a thread at work recently. I'll see if I can dig it out if anyone needs it...
 
I'm running CS5. Having done some more research there is no update for CS5 for retina displays. I'll have to upgrade to CS6. All the menus etc look pixelated and images I'm working on do too unless you go in to 100%.

Websites that are retina enabled look great yes, the resolution of the screen is brilliant in general.

My main issue is my own website now, I wonder if it's because I am using 'save for web' in CS5 for images to reduce file size.
 
gibtheo said:
I'm running CS5. Having done some more research there is no update for CS5 for retina displays. I'll have to upgrade to CS6. All the menus etc look pixelated and images I'm working on do too unless you go in to 100%.

Websites that are retina enabled look great yes, the resolution of the screen is brilliant in general.

My main issue is my own website now, I wonder if it's because I am using 'save for web' in CS5 for images to reduce file size.
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Well yes that will be it... I'm using CC and that works beautifully.

You may want to look into developing for retina a bit more, it is not just all your images, it is also all the template and stylesheet graphics. And it is not just for Mac users, plenty of hidpi windows machines about as well..
 
Thanks for the advice. I'll have to have a good look at it. Unfortunately I'm not a web designer, I've just taught myself how to use free templates on Wordpress! I updated to the latest version of Wordpress and it totally messed up the theme I was using so I had to revert to an old version to get my site back.

I'm really happy with the style of my theme now but if it's not going to make my images look good I might have to get another one.
 
without digging deep down there are all kinds of WP plugins that enable dynamic content scaling, different sliders, etc. It could be just the jetpack that you need. You obviously have to upload much larger images. The front page looks blurry even on non-retina 27" screen due to images being too small for slideshow. Make no mistake - your clients can also see it, so you need to get on it soon.
 
Thanks for the advice. It all looks great old my old macbook! It's going to take a bit of time to find all my images to resize again! As you say, needs doing though.
 
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