# Is Lightroom ok on high-res Windows 8.1 laptops?



## turnstyle (Feb 27, 2014)

Hi all, I'm considering getting something like the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus, with 3,200 x 1,800 display.

I've read that some Adobe applications don't scale well on high-res displays, and the interface winds up tiny.

I spend a lot of time in Lightroom, and so I'm curious if LR works well on these sorts of hi-res laptops, without winding up with a tiny interface?

Thanks kindly for your experience,  -Scott


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## Jim Wilde (Feb 27, 2014)

Scott, I don't know that I'd class 1920x1080 as high resolution, though I guess it rather depends on the screen's physical size. No matter, recent changes were made in Lightroom to better support so-called HiDPI screens, and this includes the enhanced capabilities in the Interface tab of the Preferences....here you'll find options to increase the font size of the UI up to 200%.


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## clee01l (Feb 27, 2014)

1920X1080 is not considered a Hi-Res display, you will be fine. Hi-Res (In reality Hi-DPI) is usually considered for screen densities of 220 ppi or greater.  My Retina MBP has a 13" 2560x1600 screen.  LR4 and later have been tweaked to use larger icons etc for OSX Hi-DPI screens. Presumably, this tweaking includes the build for Windows too.


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## DaveS (Feb 27, 2014)

Scott is indicating a resolution of 3200 x 1800, which would suggest high-res.    The non "plus" versions of that laptop do weigh in at 1920x1080.


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## turnstyle (Feb 27, 2014)

Sorry, I had mis-typed and corrected -- but you must have seen just before I fixed it.

It's 3,200 x 1,800 on a 13" display.

So, to be sure I'm following key detail, you're saying the LR GUI can scale up and work nicely on that sort of hi-res display?

Any disadvantages to that? (eg, same overall performance?)

Thanks for helping,  -Scott


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## turnstyle (Feb 27, 2014)

I can't seem to find a hiDPI setting, but perhaps that's because I'm not using a hiDPI laptop right now?

Where should I see the hiDPI setting in preferences (or elsewhere)?


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## clee01l (Feb 27, 2014)

turnstyle said:


> I can't seem to find a hiDPI setting, but perhaps that's because I'm not using a hiDPI laptop right now?
> 
> Where should I see the hiDPI setting in preferences (or elsewhere)?


LR detects the screen pixel density. There is no HiDPI setting.   It will automatically display the correctly sized icons, fonts and buttons for your display  As I stated earlier my 13" retina (2560x1600) works fine.  Your screen density at 3200X1800 is ~250ppi well within the range of current HiDPI displays.  To be safe with what I've said,  you'll need the latest LR4 version 4.41 or better still LR5.3.


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## Jim Wilde (Feb 27, 2014)

You also have the ability to set different Font sizes on the Preferences>Interface tab. 

I'm not guaranteeing that everything will be to your liking, because I just don't know (I use 2 monitors each at 1920x1200 resolution)....but as Cletus points out changes have been made in Lightroom specifically to better support HiDPI screens.

Photoshop is a different proposition....I have no idea if any similar changes have been made there.


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## turnstyle (Feb 27, 2014)

Has anybody seen this hiDPI mode engaged on a Windows 8 laptop?


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## Jim Wilde (Feb 27, 2014)

You might want to keep an eye on this thread from the U2U forum....people asking the same question.


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## clee01l (Feb 27, 2014)

Jim Wilde said:


> ...Photoshop is a different proposition....I have no idea if any similar changes have been made there.


I see no differences between the appearance of LR and Photoshop icons and buttons on my 13" retina MBP.  
I don't have Win8 installed on my MBP (just on my iMac), so I can not say for certain how LR behaves on a HiDPI Win8 display.  However, the changes that were made to LR for OSX are cosmetic (buttons and icons).  This falls under the category of Application resources and once rendered for one OS they are easily applied to all OSes when the code is compiled for that OS.


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## Jim Wilde (Feb 27, 2014)

Thanks Cletus....I only mentioned it because it was raised as a potential issue in that U2U thread that I linked to.


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## turnstyle (Feb 28, 2014)

Hey, maybe a dumb question -- but if you run a hiDPI laptop in a lower resolution mode (to get a smaller desktop, with larger 'native' icons without needing to us scaling) -- would images in Lightroom still be presented using the full resolution of the display -- or do they then become somewhat pixelated, so to speak?

For example, am I even going to run a 3,200 x 1,800 display at 3,200 x 1,800?

I like the idea of seeing my photos with more detail, but I doubt I can see a 3,200 x 1,800 desktop on a 13" screen.

Just curious how people actually use the hiDPI displays...


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## clee01l (Feb 28, 2014)

Before LR fixed their display problem, this was the only way around it. When Apple came out with Retina, they rewrote their own programs to accommodate higher pixel resolution. Others like Adobe had to follow suit. 

If you choose a non native screen resolution for your display, you will do that with one of the Windows system settings.  When ever a program like LR interrogates the system for screen resolution, it is the system settings value that is returned, not the maximum resolution that the screen is capable of producing. 

FWIW, you do not want to display images in a sub optimal resolution. So, yes you want to use that 3200X1800 setting. Otherwise, why pay extra for the HiDPI screen?


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## turnstyle (Feb 28, 2014)

A friend with a retina macbook just told me that he runs it with a smaller resolution desktop, but that images in Lightroom are presented at the full native resolution of the retina display -- was that not correct?

I'm a bit confused as to whether you actually get full-res content if you select something other than a a full-res desktop.

Thanks for bearing with me, I guess now I'm trying to figure out if a hi-res display is more hassle than benefit.


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## clee01l (Mar 1, 2014)

turnstyle said:


> A friend with a retina macbook just told me that he runs it with a smaller resolution desktop, but that images in Lightroom are presented at the full native resolution of the retina display -- was that not correct?


I can't see this being a valid comment. If the screen resolution has been converted to 96-120 ppi then LR will display the images at 96-120 ppi and not 227ppi.





> .I guess now I'm trying to figure out if a hi-res display is more hassle than benefit.


   If a font is displayed as 12pt and twelve point character is 16pixels high, it will be nearly half the size on a HiDPI screen as it would show on a standard pitch display.  These old eyes are not happy squinting to read tiny fonts. I can't say how Windows will handle this.  OSX has a Zoom feature ( {Cmd}{+} ) I use this a lot in my Browser and email apps.  Were it not for that, I would not be happy with HiDPI.  However, I really like HiDPI for clarity on displaying images.  And this is reason enough for my retinaMBP.


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