Luminous Landscape Forum
Equipment & Techniques => Computers & Peripherals => Topic started by: Ellis Vener on October 05, 2014, 04:13:06 pm
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Maybe according to MacRumors: http://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/29/retina-imac-27-amd/
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Yes please.
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What would be the reason to go beyond 4k at this point in time? Might as well wait for 8k now. When will it stop? :)
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If true, it could be a more attractive than a macpro.
It could have a very fast new 6 core i7 as a option and a ati card fast enough for 4k video.
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What would be the reason to go beyond 4k at this point in time? Might as well wait for 8k now. When will it stop? :)
Looks like Apple is just quadrupling the new screen's pixel count relative to the current 27"er. Makes some mathematical sense if nothing else. ;)
-Dave-
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A retina screen sounds interesting, but for LR users the following note from Jeff Schewe gives pause:
Re: The Achilles heel of 4k monitors on the Mac Pro?
« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2013, 06:03:44 PM »
Reply Quote
One aspect of super high rez displays is the fact that apps like Lightroom that must rip the preview image from a raw file to show updates to development must do so and much, much larger amounts of data. Running Lightroom on a 4K display would be painfully slow unless you size the LR window way down. I've already seen people find standard 30" displays really slow to redraw...careful what you wish for, you may get it and find it not to your liking :~)
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A retina screen sounds interesting, but for LR users the following note from Jeff Schewe gives pause:
Yes, this is one reason why I intend to stick for now with my 1920x1200 monitors for editing. My interest in 4k & up displays is about using them as dedicated presentation devices.
-Dave-
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Yes, this is one reason why I intend to stick for now with my 1920x1200 monitors for editing. My interest in 4k & up displays is about using them as dedicated presentation devices.
-Dave-
I don't have a speed problem using a 30" monitor in 2560x1600 resolution on my MacBook Pro 15" Retina late 2013. I have not tried 4K. Lloyd Chambers seem to be happy running at 4K on a MacBook Pro http://diglloyd.com/articles/Recommended/DellUP2414Q.html
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Maybe according to MacRumors: http://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/29/retina-imac-27-amd/
Just confirmed at the Apple event
http://www.cnet.com/products/apple-imac-27inch-2014/
also an upgrade to the Mini
http://www.cnet.com/news/apples-mac-mini-gets-long-awaited-refresh/
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My order has been placed, deliver on Oct 28. Yippee, looks to be quite the beats. Fully tricked it out.
Kevin Raber
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I need to see how well it calibrates and how well it handles Lightroom first. I was really disappointed by the mediocre ATI graphics card, when the all mighty Nvidia 980m is being put in current gaming laptops.
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That makes two of us Kevin. I got the i7 chip, 3tb fusion drive, and 4 gb video memory. I'll upgrade the RAM myself, Apple is brutal on the memory prices!! Also got a new Time Capsule to go with!
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I understand that Capture One 8 takes full advantage of processing power of multi core processors. I am really hoping C1 performs on this new machine.
Kevin
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Ayone know colour gamut yet?... Ie % of adobe rgb. Etc etc.
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I understand that Capture One 8 takes full advantage of processing power of multi core processors. I am really hoping C1 performs on this new machine.
Kevin
What is more interesting is the support for GPU's http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2014/20140421_1-MacPro2013-PhaseOne-CaptureOnePro.html
One thing that Lightroom does not utilize. Lightroom does use all cores on the CPU.
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What would be the reason to go beyond 4k at this point in time? Might as well wait for 8k now. When will it stop? :)
The new 5K screens (from Apple and Dell) are 5120px wide, but due to the video-centric 16:9 "wide-but-short" shape, are "only" 2880px high. I can see an advantage to the "pixel height" closing in on the height of our 4:3 and 3:2 still images, with some room at the side for editing controls.
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One aspect of super high rez displays is the fact that apps like Lightroom that must rip the preview image from a raw file to show updates to development must do so and much, much larger amounts of data. Running Lightroom on a 4K display would be painfully slow unless you size the LR window way down.
I would like to know more about this potential pitfall... Would updating LR to take better advantage of GPU's not potentially resolve this?
How much slower are we talking? I have not read about anyone running into this as a real world issue, but I am keen to hear more about it..
The next gen of NEC spectra views are on their way and they will have 4k options.. be good to know how this jigsaw all comes together as little point strapping a 4k monitor to LR if its going to make it perform like a slug.
Im personally not all that excited by 4k / 5k monitors - I can see a good reason if you shoot 4k video... but for shooting stills...?
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I would like to know more about this potential pitfall... Would updating LR to take better advantage of GPU's not potentially resolve this?
How much slower are we talking? I have not read about anyone running into this as a real world issue, but I am keen to hear more about it..
The next gen of NEC spectra views are on their way and they will have 4k options.. be good to know how this jigsaw all comes together as little point strapping a 4k monitor to LR if its going to make it perform like a slug.
Im personally not all that excited by 4k / 5k monitors - I can see a good reason if you shoot 4k video... but for shooting stills...?
Josh, I referred to Lloyd Chambers review of a 4K display connected to a 15" MBP late 2013 and he did not mention any slowness. When I use a 2560x1600 external display no slowness at all and this is about 4MP where 4K is 8MP and although doubled I would not expect editing in the develop module to slow to a crawl at all.
I think you need to see it :)
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For what it's worth here is a short, noisy video of a demo by Toms Hardware at the Apple even yesterday. The one thing I took away was that the text (mail) and buttons (Final Cut Pro) looked reasonably sized.
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/imac-retina-5k-hands-on,news-19792.html
I'm thinking of getting the 4k 32" Dell (down to $1800 now)
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i can’t get excited about 4/5k screens, while they are great for viewing finished work they are useless to retouch on as the 100% view is too small and the pixel doubling when viewing at at above 1:1 resolution means judging sharpness is impossible. they are more contrasty and don't have the gamut of a good HD graphics monitor with a bigger pixel pitch that means you can work easily at 100% view.
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i can’t get excited about 4/5k screens, while they are great for viewing finished work they are useless to retouch on as the 100% view is too small and the pixel doubling when viewing at at above 1:1 resolution means judging sharpness is impossible.
My thoughts exactly. During the last couple of months I've bought one Eizo CG246 and one CX240, both 1920 x 1200, and I haven't regretted that for one second. They are ideal for critical work, both web and print.
4K is good for presentation. It looks great, but I don't want it to look great. I want to see where my pixels are.
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I'm waiting to test in order to make an opinion... it's true that 100% view is "perfect", but the ability to see you pictures closer to print (magazine size, decent PPP) seems nice... maybe an imac + NEC pa 272 on the side is a good workhorse :)
Aside of this, ifixit reports same SSD blade as the retina macbook pro, so 3 TB fusion drive and switching the blade yourself (or a person that dares) can make a 1 TB SSD + 3 TB storage/backup/you name it happen for about 500$.
In my current imac I have 240 SSD and 1 tb HD (500 of silly storage and 500 Time Machine of the SSD) and is a great combo... so this is good news from m perspective ;D
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I would like to know more about this potential pitfall... Would updating LR to take better advantage of GPU's not potentially resolve this?
How much slower are we talking? I have not read about anyone running into this as a real world issue, but I am keen to hear more about it..
The next gen of NEC spectra views are on their way and they will have 4k options.. be good to know how this jigsaw all comes together as little point strapping a 4k monitor to LR if its going to make it perform like a slug.
Im personally not all that excited by 4k / 5k monitors - I can see a good reason if you shoot 4k video... but for shooting stills...?
I’m thinking similarly ... I’m more interested in things like gamut than resolution.
Currently the applications run at the resolution set in the display preference pane. To gain access to the full native resolution on the Retina MacBook Pro requires something like switchrezx, which makes the interface elements so small as to be unusable.
so how does/would LR take advantage of all those extra pixels in some useful way? Currently I believe it just maps the image through the OS based on the current resolution settings, so despite the 5k resolution, the working resolution is probably more like ¼ of the total. Can the image area itself leverage the extra pixels independent of the OS setting so the image area is handled differently but the interface is usable? Seems it can, since this was one of the problems with PS when the first retina MbP came out ... at 100% the image was about 50% smaller than what it would be on a normal display.
If so, do the apps encounter the issue mentioned by Jeff? I played around with my MbP set to full rez (which is 3840x2400) working in the develop module doesn’t seem too bad, really couldn’t see a difference (except it was impossible to click a slider and moving it with any degree of finesse) , but this is still considerably less pixels than the new iMac.
I’m sticking with my MacPro and twin NEC 30” displays. Even with glasses I’m not sure I gain anything by cranking up the resolution of the image.
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I'm still trying to get a handle on the benefit of a retina display other than the nice looks. I mean, I don't see the point of editing and posting retina quality images on PBase where 99% of the viewers won't have 4K displays, right? My dad has a hard enough time viewing the odd 1920x1080 (HDTV) image on his computer at original size (I recommend all my images be viewed at 1:1 for best quality) so posting anything approaching 4K is nuts -- until and when 4K goes mainstream in maybe 10 years.
I understand MacBook Pro laptop users like their retina displays, but then they're working with smallish 13" or 15" displays....unlike the 27" on my iMac.
Am I missing something?
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If we can display images 1:1 why would you not want to? I would like to think a sharp image is more important than sharp pixels. If applications are hard to view because of some arcane limitation in the interface I say we need new applications. I'm looking at you Photoshop.
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If we can display images 1:1 why would you not want to? I would like to think a sharp image is more important than sharp pixels. If applications are hard to view because of some arcane limitation in the interface I say we need new applications. I'm looking at you Photoshop.
Exactly.
This is like: "Who needs full frame?"
Imac retina is huge deal and giant step into the future.
Every single industry person who has seen the display is gaga over it.
But in the forums.....LOL
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http://www.macrumors.com/2014/10/21/high-end-retina-imac-benchmark/
"Yesterday, Primate Labs highlighted some Geekbench 3 benchmarking results for the new 3.5 GHz 27-inch Retina 5K iMac, unsurprisingly showing the machine performing better than slower-clocked Core i5 chips in non-Retina models but below that of high-end Core i7 chips also available in the machines since their late 2013 introduction.
Primate Labs' John Poole noted that once benchmarks for the high-end Retina 5K iMac with Intel's 4.0 GHz Core i7-4790K chip started appearing, they could show the new iMac outperforming the low-end Mac Pro, and that is indeed the case as revealed today and highlighted in an updated version of Poole's blog post from yesterday.
The 4.0 GHz Retina 5K iMac clocks in with a score of 4438 on the single-core 64-bit benchmarking test, while multi-core testing achieves a score of 16407. Across the two tests, the new high-end Retina iMac scores 11-13 percent higher than the fastest non-Retina model due to the faster processor included on the Retina model. "
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It has arrived, It's beautiful, It was easy to set up. Now I'll give it a run for its money for the next few days.
Kevin
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Any idea what is its color gamut? sRGB? Adobe RGB? Apple monitors always has been sRGB I hope this one covers AdobeRGB otherwise I don't think its for us
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Here's a link regarding the color gamut:
http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2014/20141021_1650-iMac5K-color-gamut.html
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with Apple 5k limited gamut, I still prefer to stay with my Eizo 275 and wait for its new Color Edge model in 4K.
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Hey Kev! Mine is supposed to be here Friday. Can you give us a clue on the system's speed? Mac Rumors has the loaded iMac topping out over the entry level Mac Pro, not bad!!
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Haven't done any speed tests yet. I have put it through its paces with PS CC14 and Capture One. C1 is a bit weird rendering the high res preview but once it does it is really nice. There are a few things I need to look at there. PS runs very fast. Very cool to be working with images at this res that are 100% or close to it in the preview window. I have been installing plug ins all afternoon and doing Luminous-Landscape stuff. I am now leaving for a few days so anything more will have to wait until this weekend. What I am seeing I am liking. I need to try to profile the screen. That's on this weekends list. Keep you posted.
The images are just stunning on this machine. No way to describe the look - you have to see it.
Kevin Raber
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One point that should be made is the difference between a 5K Apple retina display versus a "conventional" stand-alone 4K display. In an earlier thread on these topics, I argued that type and fonts would be tiny on a 4K display, due to its huge resolution, and noted that Apple never provided a means to increase fonts on a system-wide basis, as Windows has since at least 1995. I was corrected on that point in the same thread that some of you have quoted from. The rebuttal to my assertions was that Apple addressed these problems using their own proprietary methods when it designed the retina display. See the below links and reviews that cover those points and explain how the retina display does, in fact, address some of these issues:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7603/mac-pro-review-late-2013
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5998/macbook-pro-retina-display-analysis
I therefore am very interested to hear reports on how the retina display actually operates, as it is possible that some of the concerns in this thread may have already been addressed by Apple.
More specifically, it might mean that Apple has addressed some of these issues on their 5K retina display, whereas third party standard 4K displays might still be severely impacted by these issues. I'm not saying that is the case -- I haven't seen the 5K Retina display -- but that is what we'd all like to know.
Kevin, did you get a chance to use Lightroom? The concern has been expressed that "One aspect of super high rez displays is the fact that apps like Lightroom that must rip the preview image from a raw file to show updates to development must do so and much, much larger amounts of data. Running Lightroom on a 4K display would be painfully slow unless you size the LR window way down. I've already seen people find standard 30" displays really slow to redraw...careful what you wish for, you may get it and find it not to your liking :~)"
REVISION -- Apple may have addressed some of these issues in the latest OS. An update on 4K support is here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7847/improving-the-state-of-4k-display-support-under-os-x
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Yesterday I visited my local Apple store and the staff and I did a direct comparison of a standard iMac and the 5K iMac using the same images on both computers utilizing two flash drives that I brought into the store for this purpose. This was not the best set of circumstances for such a direct comparison. The store was overwhelmed and packed with customers at 6 PM on a Friday evening, and I therefore didn't have the luxury of a calm environment. The comparison lasted for about 15 minutes, after which other customers wanted to look at the regular iMac.
There were several other serious photographers in the store at the time also looking at the 5K iMac. We all expected to see a huge difference and to be impressed given the over-the-top language used in reviews. (PC Magazine: "The Retina 5K display isn't just good, it's overwhelming. . .(and) dazzling.")
The assessment of everyone, including the Apple sales staff, was that this was not the case. We were all surprised at the small difference between the two displays, and were generally underwhelmed. The difference between a standard iMac display and the 5K display is subtle enough that you actually have to look carefully, indeed very carefully, to see it. In the store, there was unanimous agreement on that point.
That was also revealed when an apple salesperson came over to demonstrate the improvement in the 5K display. In order to do that he used a web page from the Apple site and blew it way up, probably at a magnification level of 700% to 1000%. At such a huge magnification level, the font was better defined and crisper on the 5K display, but broke up on the regular iMac display. While this did show the difference it also underscores how small the difference actually is and what is necessary to demonstrate it. It also was a completely impractical way to demonstrate the difference in the two displays. No one ever blows up a website to that degree, and if that is what is necessary to demonstrate the difference in the two displays, then, as a practical matter, there is little difference.
My conclusion is that the reviews of the 5K retina display could best be compared to reviews of expensive audio equipment in high-end audio magazines. Reviewers will use over-the-top language to describe what are in fact very small improvements in sound quality and which only an audiophile can hear in any case, or even care about.
What is even more difficult is to quantify the level of improvement, whether it is the visual improvement in a display, or the audible improvement in high-end speakers. What is a 5% improvement to one person can be a 200% improvement to another.
BOTTOM LINE -- With that disclaimer, I would describe the subjective improvement in the 5K display as being 20% or less as compared with a standard iMac display. It is at most a subjective improvement of about 20%, and in my first draft of this posting, I said it was 15% or less. You really have to look closely and carefully to see the difference. However, note my use of "subjective" -- I'm describing the actual improvement as seen on the screen, not the theoretical improvement based on the number of pixels. And subjective is just that – what I would describe as a 20% or less improvement someone else might describe as a 500% improvement.
On the positive side, the direct comparison did demonstrate that you will see slightly more detail in high megapixel sharpened images on the 5K display as compared with a regular iMac display. I didn't have time, in the crowded store, to compare raw images, but I doubt that raw unsharpened images would reveal a greater level of detail and justify the purchase of the 5K display.
I also compared 4K video taken with the new Sony 4K camcorder. This is the first camcorder I have ever owned and my knowledge of video is minimal. With that disclaimer, I would say that the differences were even more subtle. The 4K video on the 5K display appeared to be smoother but not necessarily more detailed.
In conclusion, my bottom line is to convey a clear warning. Don't be influenced by the over-the-top reviews, that in my opinion are greatly exaggerated. That was the conclusion of all of the photographers who watched the comparison. Those in the store all thought the actual difference is very subtle.
I'd be interested in the opinion of others in the forum if you visit an Apple store and perform your own direct comparison using your own high-resolution images on a regular iMac and a 5K iMac. You need not be guided by my opinion, or the opinion of anyone else in the forum. Visit an Apple store, perform your own test with your own images using two flash drives, and judge for yourself. I can't emphasize that point strongly enough -- don't make a decision as to buying it based on the reviews, or my opinion, or the opinion of anyone else, particularly if they appear to be just setting it up and proclaiming it as the best display ever based on the "wow" factor. The only valid comparison is a side-by-side comparison of the regular versus 5K iMacs, using identical images on both.
Footnote: The basis for the comparison were high megapixel images taken with a Canon 1DS Mark II, mk III, or a Canon 5D Mk III. These were not raw images, but rather images that have been sharpened to demonstrate the difference in the two displays. The image that most clearly demonstrated the difference was a rain forest image with a very high level of detail. For the purpose of this demonstration, I took the raw image, applied capture sharpening in light room, ramped up the clarity to 30, and then exported it as a tiff image, resized to both 16x20 and 20x30, with output sharpening for both print and screen set to high. At 20 x30 that resulted in a 320 MB image. I also used other images that have been sharpened for printing in Photoshop, including one digital scan of a highly detailed 4x5 large format Velvia transparency. The rainforest image showed the difference the most clearly. Other high MB images did not, and the difference was barely visible.
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Deleted my post which was a question about using Boot Camp on a 5K retina display. That is discussed here:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6604929
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I have been away a few days on personal business. Took a number of photos while away on the Fuji X-T1. I have loaded the images in C1 which seems to really fly and they show at 100%. That means I am editing images at 100% preview size with the 5k res.
Here are a couple of quick notes.
Screen and image quality is very nice. Not Calibrated yet and from what I have been told that still might be a few weeks away for an upgrade to X-Rite software.
Photoshop seems to speed along just fine but haven't really put it to the test. It does what it is supposed and does so fast.
Capture One behaves strangely and not sure if it is Yosemite related or 5K iMac related. I loaded up some IQ180 files. C1 has to generate new review images to fill the new preview window. While doing so the present preview images gets all pixelated. Once a new preview is generated it is very nice and at 100% you see about 25% of the full size image. I tried local adjustments and no mask shows up at 100%. This looks like a bug for C1 at this resolution. The mask was being drawn as when I back off to fill screen with full image the mask is there. Masking seems very responsive. On all other tools so far it is very fast. Sorry I can't give a comparative. But I'd say it is faster than my laptop and the laptop is a later model fully loaded.
I have done just a little in Photoshop and it seems to behave and work as expected. I'll try Lightroom later today but in discussions with others I wouldn't expect it to be too fast. Most likely Adobe is spending some time optimizing the software to be speedier in the next release. I'll let you know what I see though. I am expecting to see a lot of work by LR to build previews for this size screen.
I won't have that much time to do a lot of testing as I leave on Tuesday to lead a Workshop in Scotland and I still have a lot to do on various projects. I'll give reports where and when I can.
I am still blown away by the quality of images I see on this. I did open up Final Cut and it's very cool as you can see full 4K and all controls etc.
Frankly I think that as we usually do when there is something new out that software will have to be updated for Yosemite as well as the 5K display. When this happens I believe it will be a pleasure to work in this resolution on images.
More later.
Kevin
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A quick visit to Apple store last night. Fonts are tiny. Had to put my reading glasses and approach the screen as if I am reading a book. Apple rep, a self-professed geek, couldn't find a way to change that. Didn't have chance to test anything else myself.
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What's the difference in price and performance between a fully 'tricked out' iMac 5K and a lower end MacPro?
I briefly flicked through the Apple online store, and just selecting fairly necessary add-ons to the basic iMac 5K offered, seemed to bump up the price significantly.
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What's the difference in price and performance between a fully 'tricked out' iMac 5K and a lower end MacPro?
I briefly flicked through the Apple online store, and just selecting fairly necessary add-ons to the basic iMac 5K offered, seemed to bump up the price significantly.
On the Apple site you can create and save multiple carts without actually placing an order. So just create a cart for a Mac Pro and one for the 5K iMac and compare.
On another web site the point was made that Apple charges twice as much for RAM as others, so one way to save money is to see if they will sell an iMac with two 8 MB RAM chips, and then if you want to go all the way to 32, add that memory later on your own. And on the topic of the CPUs, find out if Lightroom will make use of multi-threading. That question was asked and answered in previous threads, so you might search on that point.
My number one piece of advice is to visit an Apple store and do a comparison of the two iMacs using your own images on two flash drives. I'd be surprised if you decide to pay $3000 to $4000 for the 5K iMac once you do that comparison. I cancelled my order for a 5K iMac today based on what I saw in the store. (See my post above that reports on that comparison.) However, as I noted, it is all subjective. I don't think it is worth $3000 to $4000 to get such a subtle improvement, but others will conclude that it is worth the money. It is, as I emphasized, a subjective evaluation and decision.
Regarding the Mac Pro, there have been other threads on that unit, and you should read those. I'd wait and not buy one today. There is a new standard for displayport, that was reported on here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8533/vesa-releases-displayport-13-standard-50-more-bandwidth-new-features
It will probably take several years before a new Mac Pro is released that includes that standard, but that is what I'd do -- wait. As discussed elsewhere, Apple did not release a standalone 5K display because current connection formats don't support it. I presume the new displayport standard will do just that, but the experts in the forum can better comment on that.
A good review of the Mac Pro can be found here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7603/mac-pro-review-late-2013/
And an update on 4K support is here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7847/improving-the-state-of-4k-display-support-under-os-x
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As a long-time member of the "12MP is enough in most situations" faction, your observations do not surprise me. One question is "how close did you get to the screen? I am guessing that some reviewers were looking from way closer than ome would normally view an image that is almost 2 feet wide, while you were viewing in a more normal fashion.
One comment though: web pages are a poor way to measure text handling, since the fonts used are typically chosen to handle the relatively low resolution of most screens, san serif fonts like Helverica, Ariel and so on. A web page common design rule used to be aiming at a page looking good when dispayed about 900 to 1000 pixels wide.
A tougher test would be a publication-ready page with text in traditional "serif" typographic fonts, intended for printed output. I know that HD resolution of 1080 lines high is not enough to view well a full page of print-quality typeset text; a traditional 300ppi over just the 9 inches of actual text on a US letter sized page would need a screen 2700 pixel high, and with laser printers, 300ppi was fairly good, but 400 or 600 ppi was a noticable improvement.
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As a long-time member of the "12MP is enough in most situations" faction, your observations do not surprise me. One question is "how close did you get to the screen? I am guessing that some reviewers were looking from way closer than ome would normally view an image that is almost 2 feet wide, while you were viewing in a more normal fashion.
One comment though: web pages are a poor way to measure text handling, since the fonts used are typically chosen to handle the relatively low resolution of most screens, san serif fonts like Helverica, Ariel and so on. A web page common design rule used to be aiming at a page looking good when dispayed about 900 to 1000 pixels wide.
In the comparison test at the Apple store, we were standing directly in front of the regular and 5K iMacs. In order to see the subtle differences, we were looking from a distance of about two feet, and certainly no farther away than three feet. Since I had already ordered a fully loaded 5K iMac, I was eager to justify my purchase and order. I looked at the Macs at a closer distance than I do at home. The store manager was even more eager to point to any differences, and so in one case where a high resolution image appeared to have about the same level of detail on both Macs, she pointed to a slight difference in color, which I ignored, for reasons that we are aware of. But in that case, in another large MB high resolution image, there simply wasn't much of a difference in terms of the detail.
Regarding the web fonts, I entirely agree. My point in that case was that one of the Apple sales people had to blow up a web page to a huge degree, probably close to 700% to 1,000%, in order to demonstrate any visible difference. That was his test to "prove" the difference, not mine.
I didn't look at regular fonts and they certainly might look better on the retina display, just as they do on a Macbook retina display. Personally, I wouldn't spend $3,000 to $4,000 for that slight improvement in fonts, but an editor who looks at type all day long might do so. While I type this, I am aware that some smaller web fonts are slightly blurred, especially the smallest fonts. I assume a $3500 5K iMac could improve on that.
There is no question that there is a difference, and I saw that on a few 300+ MB high resolution images, while I could not see a difference on others. And I assume the same would be true of fonts. IMHO it is a subtle difference, but others might disagree and call it a significant enough difference to justify the purchase. It is subjective and in the end, a personal decision.
It should be noted that others in this thread said that they would wait for future 4K or 5K displays that would perform better than the Apple retina display regarding color rendition, etc. That might be possible in the not too distant future, in light of the following report on improvements in support for third party 4K displays:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7847/improving-the-state-of-4k-display-support-under-os-x
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On the Apple site you can create and save multiple carts without actually placing an order. So just create a cart for a Mac Pro and one for the 5K iMac and compare.
On another web site the point was made that Apple charges twice as much for RAM as others, so one way to save money is to see if they will sell an iMac with two 8 MB RAM chips, and then if you want to go all the way to 32, add that memory later on your own. And on the topic of the CPUs, find out if Lightroom will make use of multi-threading. That question was asked and answered in previous threads, so you might search on that point.
My number one piece of advice is to visit an Apple store and do a comparison of the two iMacs using your own images on two flash drives. I'd be surprised if you decide to pay $3000 to $4000 for the 5K iMac once you do that comparison. I cancelled my order for a 5K iMac today based on what I saw in the store. (See my post above that reports on that comparison.) However, as I noted, it is all subjective. I don't think it is worth $3000 to $4000 to get such a subtle improvement, but others will conclude that it is worth the money. It is, as I emphasized, a subjective evaluation and decision.
Regarding the Mac Pro, there have been other threads on that unit, and you should read those. I'd wait and not buy one today. There is a new standard for displayport, that was reported on here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8533/vesa-releases-displayport-13-standard-50-more-bandwidth-new-features
It will probably take several years before a new Mac Pro is released that includes that standard, but that is what I'd do -- wait. As discussed elsewhere, Apple did not release a standalone 5K display because current connection formats don't support it. I presume the new displayport standard will do just that, but the experts in the forum can better comment on that.
A good review of the Mac Pro can be found here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7603/mac-pro-review-late-2013/
And an update on 4K support is here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7847/improving-the-state-of-4k-display-support-under-os-x
Maybe this will help with the performance questions:
http://www.barefeats.com/imac5k.html
http://www.barefeats.com/imac5k3.html
http://www.barefeats.com/imac5k1.html
Best regards,
J. Duncan
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How Lloyd Chambers prepares his site for retina capable displays: http://diglloyd.com/retinapref.html
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...and Mr. Chambers reports on 5K Retina iMac's color gamut compared to his NEC PA302W: http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2014/20141021_1650-iMac5K-color-gamut.html
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A quick visit to Apple store last night. Fonts are tiny. Had to put my reading glasses and approach the screen as if I am reading a book. Apple rep, a self-professed geek, couldn't find a way to change that. Didn't have chance to test anything else myself.
There is an option to adjust text sizes (offering about five different levels), at
System Prefences > Displays > radio button for "Scaled".
This is different under 10.10 "Yosemite" than before: now there is a choice specifically for text size, where before there was just a choice of overall pixel count.
Maybe your local Apple Genii missed the "Yosemite" briefing!
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Correct. That option now exists for other 4K displays, and is covered in the link I previously provided.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7847/improving-the-state-of-4k-display-support-under-os-x
However, the Apple OS operating system does not increase the size of all fonts, so it is very possible that Slobodan was looking at a font that can NOT be increased in size, unless everything is enlarged through a change in the resolution of the entire screen. IMHO this is a major deficiency in the Mac OS and one area where Windows is clearly superior. Windows has offered the option of increasing font sizes on a system-wide basis for over 20 years, at least since Windows 95. The internet is filled with complaints from older users of Macs, who don't have the sharp eyesight of a teenager, who complain about this problem, and those complaints have have been ignored by Apple for years. I once sent in letters to the major Mac magazines asking why they don't complain about this. Since the Mac magazines are prostitutes for Apple who profit from advertising for Apple products, they did not publish my letters.
I'm hoping that as Apple focuses on better support for 4K displays, they will finally fix this problem. Ironically, we can increase font size in apps like Safari, but not in the various panels that are part of the Apple system. Scaling up the resolution to read system fonts defeats the purpose of larger resolutions.
On the subject of fonts, I went back to a another Mac store and did the same head-to-head comparison using two flash drives with the same images, to double check my own results. This time I included a word doc with 8 point fonts. As expected the really tiny fonts were sharper on a retina display. On images, my conclusion remained the same, that the difference is very subtle. The difference is only evident on the finest of details. In a rainforest shot, taken at very wide angle, so ferns are small, the difference is evident in the individual leaves on a fern. That is a very small difference IMHO. Once I magnified the images, on a regular iMac and 5K iMac, that difference disappeared and was not visible, as we'd expect.
So I continue to believe that the subjective difference, that can be seen, is less that 15% to 20%. I already cancelled my order for a 5K iMac, as my current iMac operates fine with regards to the CPU and amount of Ram. My plan is to wait a few more years, for a release of a new Mac Pro that includes the new standard for displayport 3, and when all of the issues related to 4K displays have been fully resolved.
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Another 5K iMac review, part I, from Datacolor's C. David Tobie: http://blog.datacolor.com/c-david-tobie-the-retina-imac-for-photo-and-video-work-part-i/
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I just got my iMac 27" 5k i7, 1tb ssd, 32gb ram, and 295 graphics card. Images in Lightroom look great, but the one problem I have at the moment is that my XRite ColorMunki software cannot install on Yosemite. As a result I won't be able to calibrate my monitor until they make compatible software available.
I called XRite tech support and they have no idea when a software upgrade will be released. Bummer!
Bud
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... my XRite ColorMunki software cannot install on Yosemite. As a result I won't be able to calibrate my monitor...
According to X-Rite:
X-Rite customers that upgrade to the new Apple OS 10.10 Yosemite should experience no difficulties with the following exceptions noted below:
Colormunki Display is listed, but Photo and Design are not. So, if your version is Display, you should be able to profile your monitor.
They say the following about Photo (originally scheduled for Nov 3rd release):
NOV 3rd UPDATE: Yosemite compatible software release for ColorMunki Photo is unexpectedly delayed. Our development team has run into an unforeseen coding issue. However, they are actively working to resolve this as quickly as possible. If you would like to be notified when it is ready, please complete the form to the top-right of the page.
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As a result I won't be able to calibrate my monitor until they make compatible software available.
how about alternatives - free argyll with free dispcalGUI frontend or even a trial (enough to last you for a while) version of BasicColor display ?
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According to Xrite the ColorMunki software has now been updated and is compatible with Yosemite (OS X 10.10.1) http://xritephoto.com/custom_page.aspx?pageID=540