# Display issues with external monitors



## Win

Operating System: Windows 10
Exact Lightroom Version (Help menu > System Info): 7.1

I have a new laptop that has a 4K internal display. My external monitors are 24" with a maximum resolution of 1920 x 1200. The monitors are connected to the NVIDIA graphics card through the HDMI port and the mini-display port. 

Most applications are able to be displayed on any of the three displays without problem, but the entire Adobe Creative Suite seems to have serious problems displaying in a workable way with this setup. I have worked with NVIDIA support who has indicated that the graphics card is able to drive the lower resolution external monitors with the higher resolution built-in display but they have, so far, not been able to help me solve the display issues with Lightroom and Photoshop and a File Open dialog from a browser.

Lightroom - even if opened directly on one of the external monitors (instead of "moved" there after it opens on the built-in display) - has HUGE menus while everything is the correct size (I've attached a picture). Adobe Bridge opens with everything really small (picture attached). And the File Open dialog when it opens from a Chrome browser showing on one of the external monitors is GINORMOUS (picture attached). When I move Photoshop from the built-display to an external monitor it is huge and won't size down.

   

All of the pictures (except the last one) are a screen capture of the entire 24" monitor space and so you can see across the three images how differently things are displaying. The last one has the full width of the 24" display but not the height as the file was too large to upload if I had the entire height. 

Any ideas or suggestions? Again, I'm not having this problem with the MS Office Suite or with any other applications outside of Adobe Creative Suite.

Appreciate your time and any help.
Win


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## Win

I have found a resolution (for all of the Adobe issues) and wanted to share. I have spent hours with support from Nvidia, MSI (laptop manufacturer), and Adobe. All gave the same suggestions - change resolution on my built-in 4K monitor, try changing the text size (which didn't address the  problem at all), update drivers, etc. While waiting for my turn with Adobe support today, I googled and ran across some forum posts and some blog posts that described this as a "High DPI display issue." That led me to some posts which suggested that you modify properties in the EXE file to override the standard High DPI scaling setting. I tried various settings and the one that fixed it for me was to force the application to use the "System (Enhanced)" setting.  See the screen shot below.

Making this change on the Lightroom, Photoshop, InDesign, and Bridge EXE files has resolved all of the weird display problems I was having with those applications. Too bad Adobe support isn't aware of such settings....Now if I can just fix this in Chrome


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## Hal P Anderson

Nice work! Thanks for posting your solution.


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## Win

The same adjustment to the Properties dialog box has fixed Chrome, but it required a reboot for it to take effect. I'm so happy that the display issue is fixed!


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## BigAl

The Adobe CC suite programs performance with high resolution displays is pretty abysmal. I was quite happy using Lr4, since it supported all my cameras, but when I got a new system with a Dell 5K monitor 18 months ago I had to upgrade to CC to get full HiDPI support. Yet I'm able to keep using my existing copy of Office 2007, and the only thing that isn't correctly scaled is the opening splash screen, which is just an image displayed at 1:1 resolution anyway.

Alan


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## Arlcrane

Win, You are my Hero!  Simple solution that worked perfectly!

Thank-you


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## Win

So glad it worked for you.


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## ESXBOY

Great post .... thanks for sharing. Worked for me !!!!


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## dcuozzo38

Win said:


> I have found a resolution (for all of the Adobe issues) and wanted to share. I have spent hours with support from Nvidia, MSI (laptop manufacturer), and Adobe. All gave the same suggestions - change resolution on my built-in 4K monitor, try changing the text size (which didn't address the  problem at all), update drivers, etc. While waiting for my turn with Adobe support today, I googled and ran across some forum posts and some blog posts that described this as a "High DPI display issue." That led me to some posts which suggested that you modify properties in the EXE file to override the standard High DPI scaling setting. I tried various settings and the one that fixed it for me was to force the application to use the "System (Enhanced)" setting.  See the screen shot below.
> 
> Making this change on the Lightroom, Photoshop, InDesign, and Bridge EXE files has resolved all of the weird display problems I was having with those applications. Too bad Adobe support isn't aware of such settings....Now if I can just fix this in Chrome
> 
> View attachment 10614





Can someone please help me?  I use Adobe Creative Cloud Lightroom Classic  and I am unable to  locate Lightroom properties.  Is that because it's a non-desktop version?  I am having major issues with the LRC window not resizing when I drag to an external monitor.  Thank you in advance!


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## Hal P Anderson

On Windows, Lightroom Properties are reached by right-clicking on the LrC executable icon and choosing Properties from the context menu that you get. It's a Windows thing, not a LrC thing.


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## dcuozzo38

Thank you for responding.  I didn't have the shortcut on my desktop and that was the only way to right click to access properties.  Unfortunately, the above steps didn't resolve the scaling issue.  his is only happening in LR Classic and LR Cloud applications.  Photoshop s perfectly fine...So frustrating!


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## dcuozzo38

Hal P Anderson said:


> On Windows, Lightroom Properties are reached by right-clicking on the LrC executable icon and choosing Properties from the context menu that you get. It's a Windows thing, not a LrC thing.
> View attachment 14849


Thank you for responding. I didn't have the shortcut on my desktop and that was the only way to right click to access properties. Unfortunately, the above steps didn't resolve the scaling issue. his is only happening in LR Classic and LR Cloud applications. Photoshop s perfectly fine...So frustrating!


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## Dr KG

Just a big thank you to Win for her post 2 years ago. Changing the options in the Lightroom exe file worked for me.  Am using a Surface Book 3 with a 3000 x 2000 resolution  and an second monitor with a 1920 x1080 display and was getting the lack of scaling on the second monitor as described above, which made it LR unusable on it. Given that you need a large monitor to sort photos in Lightroom Classic, thought I would have to buy a new monitor. Again thanks to Win and LRQueen.


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## LeslieMcguire

Hallelujah, and thank you Win!

I also have just purchased the Surface Book 3 and was going insane trying to figure out how to get the second monitor to work properly. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

Leslie


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## nicokobel99

Thanks for this solution. I had the exact same issue and it works great on my external 2k 27" monitor. But on my 4k 17" notebook all images (thumbnails, preview and even fullscreen) are blurry and seem to have a much lower resolution. Any idea on how to fix this?


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