high resolution monitor causes palettes to be very small

Gregg,

I’m not certain, but that may well be the nature of the beast when using a large display setting. You might try adjusting elements of the Appearance configuration, such as larger fonts for title bars and the like. Maybe that would in turn trickle down to affecting the palettes also, but I suspect not. I’m expecting the palettes and fonts used are fixed sizes. The only other alternative I can think of is to be sure you’ve selected large fonts in the monitor settings…under Advanced I believe.

Regards,

Daryl

What resolution are you running? I have dual 1600 x 1200 LCDs and the palattes seem fine.

Gregg,

Small palattes means you have room for more of them, which could be a good thing. If you select "Larger Fonts" in your graphics card setup, that may help, but it may also cause problems, like some text being truncated.

You can change the resolution of your display in your graphics card’s setup. A lower graphics card resolution like, for example, 1024×768, will make your palettes bigger. It’s a tradeoff. Experiment to find a setting that you prefer.

But if your graphics card’s resolution exceeds your monitor’s capability, you could actually damage your monitor by "overdriving" it by sending it a larger display than it can handle. So don’t pick a graphics card resolution higher than the one you have now. There’s no need for you to do that anyway, because your present graphics card resolution is already higher than you like it.

— Burton —

wrote:

does anyone know how to resolve the issues of palettes being very small in PS when you are using a high resolution monitor. you should know that if you change the resolution of the monitor images become distorted so that is not the answer. from all I have been able to figure out is that I need the palletes themseleves to be bigger. Please HELP

Hah! I think I may know the answer to this one IF you are talking about the WinXP version of Photoshop CS. The answer as I found out is this:

I wanted to use Photoshop on our new computer which supported 1600 X 1200 instead of our present setting of 1024 X 768. I went through the whole process of changing the font size of all the elements of Windows XP (right click the Desktop and go to Advanced, etc.), also changed the font resolution to 96 DPI and then to 120 DPI, and verified the latest Nvidia driver, etc.

The result was that only the higher level menus and font applications (icons) could be changed. There was a hard core of locations where the original 8 point font that they used was untouchable. Unfortunately, that meant that at 1600 X 1200, they looked like 3 Point font. You can go blind trying to read that stuff!!

What I found was the following:

1. Photoshop, like many applications, are tied directly into the Win XP display configuration settings and therefore, it is only programmed to change the main menu font size; It did not change the sub-menus, the help screens, file manager, etc., etc.

2. Some applications allowed you to go into an options setting and change the secondary menus so they are readable. Unfortunately, they tended to be Microsoft products (e.g. Word, Excel, Outlook, etc.). [Do you think the Office application developers knew about this problem?] However, even in these Microsoft cases where they allowed you to make the application "usable", the help screens and other banners, option lists, etc. remained the same tiny font that just got shrunk as you moved to a screen higher resolution.

I turned this over to Microsoft as an XP problem and I dealt with two levels of Microsoft technical support to find out the following:

1. You are wasting you money on high resolution displays because many application developers, including Microsoft have tied their fonts, banners, field sizes to the system defaults in Windows XP.

2. This is a BIG problem because there are some system fonts in Windows that cannot be accessed by the user and are integral to the system overall.

3. The only way for you to get around this is for your application provider (Adobe) to rewrite their code to be independent of these locked-in system fonts.

4. Microsoft technical support said they could not solve this problem and that I should default my system back to a lower resolution setting that is readable. In addition, if I wished this to be solved sometime in the future, I should send in an e-mail (go to web site) and put it on the Microsoft "Wish List" to have this problem looked at (real soon :)).

Well, that’s the sad story. I have tried to find a way to get to Adobe about this issue but like most modern companies, they make it hard to get to a technical person unless you are willing to rack up long distance charges.

I plan to turn down the resolution until I can use Photoshop file manager. I use bifocals and its tough enough without tiny fonts.

If you hear of a way around this problem or know how to get Adobe’s attention, let me know.

Good Luck

Mickey

Mickey Lowy wrote:

wrote:

does anyone know how to resolve the issues of palettes being very small in PS when you are using a high resolution monitor. you should know that if you change the resolution of the monitor images become distorted so that is not the answer. from all I have been able to figure out is that I need the palletes themseleves to be bigger. Please HELP

Hah! I think I may know the answer to this one IF you are talking about the WinXP version of Photoshop CS. The answer as I found out is this:

I wanted to use Photoshop on our new computer which supported 1600 X 1200 instead of our present setting of 1024 X 768. I went through the whole process of changing the font size of all the elements of Windows XP (right click the Desktop and go to Advanced, etc.), also changed the font resolution to 96 DPI and then to 120 DPI, and verified the latest Nvidia driver, etc.

The result was that only the higher level menus and font applications (icons) could be changed. There was a hard core of locations where the original 8 point font that they used was untouchable. Unfortunately, that meant that at 1600 X 1200, they looked like 3 Point font. You can go blind trying to read that stuff!!

All of your following rant is correct in that the flexibility regarding font sizes that should be available in a correctly implemented application verified for WinXP (or even W98 and W2K) doesn’t exist even in apps from those who designed th whole thing.

OTOH: High resolution (like 1600×1200 or bigger) is designed for larger monitors. To have the same pixel size you see on a 17" 1024×768 screen using a 1600×1200 resolution you need a 26" monitor. My usual 1280×960 setting on 17" would require a 22" screen to display everything in the same size.

Higher resolution gives you more space on the screen. Higher DPI gives you smaller letters. If you can’t read them get better glasses or a larger monitor.

BTW: The 8pixel font is shown at 7.5 point using 1024×768, at 6 point using 1280×960 and at 4.8 point at 1600×1200 on the same 17" display.

Michael

Xalinai wrote:

Mickey Lowy wrote:

wrote:

does anyone know how to resolve the issues of palettes being very small in PS when you are using a high resolution monitor. you should know that if you change the resolution of the monitor images become distorted so that is not the answer. from all I have been able to figure out is that I need the palletes themseleves to be bigger. Please HELP

Hah! I think I may know the answer to this one IF you are talking about the WinXP version of Photoshop CS. The answer as I found out is this:

I wanted to use Photoshop on our new computer which supported 1600 X 1200 instead of our present setting of 1024 X 768. I went through the whole process of changing the font size of all the elements of Windows XP (right click the Desktop and go to Advanced, etc.), also changed the font resolution to 96 DPI and then to 120 DPI, and verified the latest Nvidia driver, etc.

The result was that only the higher level menus and font applications (icons) could be changed. There was a hard core of locations where the original 8 point font that they used was untouchable. Unfortunately, that meant that at 1600 X 1200, they looked like 3 Point font. You can go blind trying to read that stuff!!

All of your following rant is correct in that the flexibility regarding font sizes that should be available in a correctly implemented application verified for WinXP (or even W98 and W2K) doesn’t exist even in apps from those who designed th whole thing.

OTOH: High resolution (like 1600×1200 or bigger) is designed for larger monitors. To have the same pixel size you see on a 17" 1024×768 screen using a 1600×1200 resolution you need a 26" monitor. My usual 1280×960 setting on 17" would require a 22" screen to display everything in the same size.

Higher resolution gives you more space on the screen. Higher DPI gives you smaller letters. If you can’t read them get better glasses or a larger monitor.

BTW: The 8pixel font is shown at 7.5 point using 1024×768, at 6 point using 1280×960 and at 4.8 point at 1600×1200 on the same 17" display.
Michael

Thanks for the reply Michael. However, maybe you can clarify what you just said.

Are you saying that a 17" monitor running at a resolution higher than 1024 X 768 (assuming the monitor and graphic card support higher resolutions) will not display a better quality image on the screen? Will JPEG images not be displayed in finer detail? If that is the case, then what is the point of higher resolutions?

RE: Your BTW: That was interesting. How did you figure out the font displacement for each resolution?

Take care,

Mickey

Mickey Lowy wrote:

Xalinai wrote:

Mickey Lowy wrote:

wrote:

does anyone know how to resolve the issues of palettes being very small in PS when you are using a high resolution monitor. you should know that if you change the resolution of the monitor images become distorted so that is not the answer. from all I have been able to figure out is that I need the palletes themseleves to be bigger. Please HELP

Hah! I think I may know the answer to this one IF you are talking about the WinXP version of Photoshop CS. The answer as I found out is this:

I wanted to use Photoshop on our new computer which supported 1600 X 1200 instead of our present setting of 1024 X 768. I went through the whole process of changing the font size of all the elements of Windows XP (right click the Desktop and go to Advanced, etc.), also changed the font resolution to 96 DPI and then to 120 DPI, and verified the latest Nvidia driver, etc.
The result was that only the higher level menus and font applications (icons) could be changed. There was a hard core of locations where the original 8 point font that they used was untouchable. Unfortunately, that meant that at 1600 X 1200, they looked like 3 Point font. You can go blind trying to read that stuff!!

All of your following rant is correct in that the flexibility regarding font sizes that should be available in a correctly implemented application verified for WinXP (or even W98 and W2K) doesn’t exist even in apps from those who designed th whole thing.
OTOH: High resolution (like 1600×1200 or bigger) is designed for larger monitors. To have the same pixel size you see on a 17" 1024×768 screen using a 1600×1200 resolution you need a 26" monitor. My usual 1280×960 setting on 17" would require a 22" screen to display everything in the same size.

Higher resolution gives you more space on the screen. Higher DPI gives you smaller letters. If you can’t read them get better glasses or a larger monitor.

BTW: The 8pixel font is shown at 7.5 point using 1024×768, at 6 point using 1280×960 and at 4.8 point at 1600×1200 on the same 17" display.

Michael

Thanks for the reply Michael. However, maybe you can clarify what you just said.

Are you saying that a 17" monitor running at a resolution higher than 1024 X 768 (assuming the monitor and graphic card support higher resolutions) will not display a better quality image on the screen? Will JPEG images not be displayed in finer detail? If that is the case, then what is the point of higher resolutions?

Higher resolution on the monitor shows either the same number of pixels covering a smaller area, giving you free space or more pixels on the same area, giving you more detail. If you already zoomed in to 100% in the lower resolution and could see all of your image then you will get no more detail – in fact you will see less detail if the resolution is beyond the monitors resolution (Dot triple pitch) or beyond what your eye/glasses combination can receive.

The point of higher resolution is to have more pixels for rendering smoother fonts, more space when using larger monitors for huge tables or showing lots of tool pallettes together wit the image.

RE: Your BTW: That was interesting. How did you figure out the font displacement for each resolution?

Eihter measure the height of the screen and remember that M$’s eight point system font is actually eight *pixels* high. If the visible diagonal of the 17"screen is 16" then the height is 16/5*3 or 9.6". Now my display is set to 1280×960 that means there are 100pixels per inch on the 9.6inches height.
8Point is 8/72 inch – but 8 pixels is 8/100 inch on my screen so the 8 points are shown in 8*72/100 or 5.76 points high.

Michael

Take care,

Mickey

On Sat, 09 Oct 2004 22:11:09 GMT, Mickey Lowy
wrote:

Xalinai wrote:

Mickey Lowy wrote:

wrote:

does anyone know how to resolve the issues of palettes being very small in PS when you are using a high resolution monitor. you should know that if you change the resolution of the monitor images become distorted so that is not the answer. from all I have been able to figure out is that I need the palletes themseleves to be bigger. Please HELP

Hah! I think I may know the answer to this one IF you are talking about the WinXP version of Photoshop CS. The answer as I found out is this:

I wanted to use Photoshop on our new computer which supported 1600 X 1200 instead of our present setting of 1024 X 768. I went through the whole process of changing the font size of all the elements of Windows XP (right click the Desktop and go to Advanced, etc.), also changed the font resolution to 96 DPI and then to 120 DPI, and verified the latest Nvidia driver, etc.

The result was that only the higher level menus and font applications (icons) could be changed. There was a hard core of locations where the original 8 point font that they used was untouchable. Unfortunately, that meant that at 1600 X 1200, they looked like 3 Point font. You can go blind trying to read that stuff!!

All of your following rant is correct in that the flexibility regarding font sizes that should be available in a correctly implemented application verified for WinXP (or even W98 and W2K) doesn’t exist even in apps from those who designed th whole thing.

OTOH: High resolution (like 1600×1200 or bigger) is designed for larger monitors. To have the same pixel size you see on a 17" 1024×768 screen using a 1600×1200 resolution you need a 26" monitor. My usual 1280×960 setting on 17" would require a 22" screen to display everything in the same size.

Higher resolution gives you more space on the screen. Higher DPI gives you smaller letters. If you can’t read them get better glasses or a larger monitor.

BTW: The 8pixel font is shown at 7.5 point using 1024×768, at 6 point using 1280×960 and at 4.8 point at 1600×1200 on the same 17" display.
Michael

Thanks for the reply Michael. However, maybe you can clarify what you just said.

Are you saying that a 17" monitor running at a resolution higher than 1024 X 768 (assuming the monitor and graphic card support higher resolutions) will not display a better quality image on the screen? Will JPEG images not be displayed in finer detail? If that is the case, then what is the point of higher resolutions?

Another option is to use 2 monitors, put your image in one and palettes in the other. With the video card I use I can have the ‘palette monitor’ at lower res which makes reading easier again. Dual monitor cards are made primarily for games, the expensive ones are fast rather than high quality. I bought the cheapest one I could get, it’s fine.

John

RE: Your BTW: That was interesting. How did you figure out the font displacement for each resolution?

Take care,

Mickey

Screen resolution does absolutely nothing to increase the quality of a graphics file. All it will change is the apparent size. The number of pixels doesn’t change, just the number of pixels displayed per inch (or any other given unit of measure). This may have the effect of making the image look better, but it is only an illusion. You can display the same image on a lower resolution monitor and get the same effect by stepping back a few feet.

The main point is to gain more "real estate" in your Photoshop work area. For large monitors, higher resolution is a necessity, especially when working at a normal distance away. On a large monitor set to 800 by 600, one pixel can look huge, reletively speaking.

Peadge 🙂

"Mickey Lowy" wrote in message

Xalinai wrote:
Are you saying that a 17" monitor running at a resolution higher than 1024 X 768 (assuming the monitor and graphic card support higher resolutions) will not display a better quality image on the screen? Will JPEG images not be displayed in finer detail? If that is the case, then what is the point of higher resolutions?

RE: Your BTW: That was interesting. How did you figure out the font displacement for each resolution?

Take care,

Mickey