Adobe Bridge CS6 interface pixelated under Sierra

[philipus]

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I did a clean install of Sierra yesterday on my 13" retina Macbook Pro 2013 and reinstalled CS6 Photoshop and Bridge.

 

The text in menus, file names etc in Bridge is very pixelated. I'm quite sure that this was not the case under El Capitan. I've checked but there are no updates to be installed. Just as under El Cap, I have the display to 1440x800.

 

Is this due to Sierra somehow? Does anyone know of a fix?

 

Thanks in advance

philip

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[pico]

[... deleted - suggestion to use FontBook, but needs clarification. Will try to get back.  ... ]

Edited June 14, 2017 by pico

[adan]

Dunno if this helps - I have PSCS6, but neither Sierra nor a Retina screen. Looks like making adjustments to settings after a Sierra install may be useful.

 

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25302?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

 

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/57963/font-smoothing-on-external-display-working-badly-rmbp

 

ALSO - apparently Mac type behaves better when black on white rather than white on dark background (e.g. LightRoom or Photoshop 6 default theme) - I use the "old" black on white theme similar to earlier Photoshops anyway. AND apparently PS uses its own type rendering, which may be "interacting" with Apple's screen or rendering functions.

 

https://maximilianhoffmann.com/posts/better-font-rendering-on-osx

[pico]

Do what adan suggested!

If it does not help, then clean up fonts.

 

Okay, let's try FontBook to find corrupt font files.

FontBook is in apps or in Launchpad.

Start it up.

 

In the far left column select All Fonts

Under the File menu select Validate Fonts ( ¹ if there is no 's' in Fonts, then click in the fonts list and command a to select all)

(it will run for a minute)

in the box that popped up, look at the upper left corner.

click on it and select Warnings and Errors

 

The box should show fatal and buggy fonts, if any found.

If found check the box, Select all fonts

then press the button Remove Checked 

 

Quit (or run again to validate all fonts to be reassured)

 

¹ is a bug (this is done because sometimes no all fonts are automatically selected)

 

The reason for using Font Book is that fonts can be in several places and Font Book will go through the

folders in the proper order, making short work of the fixing.

Edited June 14, 2017 by pico

[philipus]

Thank you very much for your suggestions. I have tried them but to no avail, unfortunately. And all fonts validate.

 

Having looked further, it seems I misremember how Bridge looked under El Capitan because apparently one needs Bridge CC for full retina support (though Photoshop CS6 does support it). Also here (only lists CC, at the very end of the page).

 

My memory must be much worse than I thought 

 

Again thanks for your help.

br

Philip

 

Do what adan suggested!

If it does not help, then clean up fonts.

 

Okay, let's try FontBook to find corrupt font files.

FontBook is in apps or in Launchpad.

Start it up.

 

In the far left column select All Fonts

Under the File menu select Validate Fonts ( ¹ if there is no 's' in Fonts, then click in the fonts list and command a to select all)

(it will run for a minute)

in the box that popped up, look at the upper left corner.

click on it and select Warnings and Errors

 

The box should show fatal and buggy fonts, if any found.

If found check the box, Select all fonts

then press the button Remove Checked 

 

Quit (or run again to validate all fonts to be reassured)

 

¹ is a bug (this is done because sometimes no all fonts are automatically selected)

 

The reason for using Font Book is that fonts can be in several places and Font Book will go through the

folders in the proper order, making short work of the fixing.

 

 

Dunno if this helps - I have PSCS6, but neither Sierra nor a Retina screen. Looks like making adjustments to settings after a Sierra install may be useful.

 

https://support.apple.com/kb/PH25302?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US

 

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/57963/font-smoothing-on-external-display-working-badly-rmbp

 

ALSO - apparently Mac type behaves better when black on white rather than white on dark background (e.g. LightRoom or Photoshop 6 default theme) - I use the "old" black on white theme similar to earlier Photoshops anyway. AND apparently PS uses its own type rendering, which may be "interacting" with Apple's screen or rendering functions.

 

https://maximilianhoffmann.com/posts/better-font-rendering-on-osx

[pico]

Now I am confused, Philip. I use a 16" (15.4") screen 2016 Mac Pro laptop and used Apple's migration tool to upgrade it from an old, old 13" Air. All went well, BUT I use year 2011 Adobe CS5, V12.1 x32 (*reported as x64) (White Rabbit). Could this older version be more compatible than V6?

 

[philipus]

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It may be that the old version is more compatible. Perhaps Adobe will release a fix for CS6 but I doubt it since they seem only to focus on CC these days.

 

Here is a 100% screenshot of how Bridge CS6 looks under Sierra on my laptop. As you can see also the image previews are pixelated (I have purged the cache but that doesn't do anything).

 

Having thought about it I'm quite sure the interface wasn't this bad under El Cap (though it may still have been a bit pixelated).

 

When I saved the screenshot for web in Photoshop CS6 it looked much better so I guess there really is a difference between how Bridge and Photoshop render the interface under Sierra.

 

 

 

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Now I am confused, Philip. I use a 16" (15.4") screen 2016 Mac Pro laptop and used Apple's migration tool to upgrade it from an old, old 13" Air. All went well, BUT I use year 2011 Adobe CS5, V12.1 x32 (*reported as x64) (White Rabbit). Could this older version be more compatible than V6?

 

 

[adan]

I think I know what is going on here - now. Probably not too helpful though.

 

The native resolution of the 13" Retina Display is 2560 x 1600 (or even higher in newer Mac Book Pros.) Much sharper, but smaller, pixels than previous displays (essentially, it is the resolution of my 20" Cinema display, shrunk to fit within a 13" screen).

 

Adobe has been playing catch-up with the new "invisibly-small pixels" (HiDPI) of the Retina screens over time - but not equally across the independent parts of CS6 (Photoshop, Adobe Camera Raw, Bridge), which are, after all, really separate programs.

 

Photoshop CS6 itself supports the new screen behavior. Adobe Camera RAW supports it as of v. 8.7 but only IF you are using the CC version of Photoshop. Bridge only supports it in the CC version (the permanent-license "DVD" CS6 version of Bridge does not and never will).

 

You can likely get clean, unpixellated (but half the size) text in your version of Bridge by changing your resolution setting to the maximum (and native) setting for the 13" Retina Screen - 2560 x 1600. If you use a lower screen res like 1440 x 800, Photoshop will (or should) adapt the user-interface text size cleanly - Bridge and ACR will simply "blow up" the pixels by close to 200%, resulting in the jaggies.

 

Although you can look through these Apple and Adobe information pages to see if I missed something.

 

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop--hidpi-retina-display.html

 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202471

 

Put another way - PS6 uses, say, 8-point type, drawn with whatever pixels your screen setting makes available. ACR and Bridge use 8-pixel-tall type, which is simply blown up (not redrawn with sharper edges) if you use less than the native 2560 x 1600 screen setting.

Edited June 15, 2017 by adan

[philipus]

Thank you Andy. Yes, I think you're right, this is how it is. A while back I tried one of those apps which permits setting the resolution to various HiDPI and non-HiDPI resolutions. The problem with the screen's native resolution is that the menus become tiny. I guess I will just have to live with this which I could do because this notebook isn't my main computer.

 

br

Philip

 

I think I know what is going on here - now. Probably not too helpful though.

 

The native resolution of the 13" Retina Display is 2560 x 1600 (or even higher in newer Mac Book Pros.) Much sharper, but smaller, pixels than previous displays (essentially, it is the resolution of my 20" Cinema display, shrunk to fit within a 13" screen).

 

Adobe has been playing catch-up with the new "invisibly-small pixels" (HiDPI) of the Retina screens over time - but not equally across the independent parts of CS6 (Photoshop, Adobe Camera Raw, Bridge), which are, after all, really separate programs.

 

Photoshop CS6 itself supports the new screen behavior. Adobe Camera RAW supports it as of v. 8.7 but only IF you are using the CC version of Photoshop. Bridge only supports it in the CC version (the permanent-license "DVD" CS6 version of Bridge does not and never will).

 

You can likely get clean, unpixellated (but half the size) text in your version of Bridge by changing your resolution setting to the maximum (and native) setting for the 13" Retina Screen - 2560 x 1600. If you use a lower screen res like 1440 x 800, Photoshop will (or should) adapt the user-interface text size cleanly - Bridge and ACR will simply "blow up" the pixels by close to 200%, resulting in the jaggies.

 

Although you can look through these Apple and Adobe information pages to see if I missed something.

 

https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb/photoshop--hidpi-retina-display.html

 

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202471

 

Put another way - PS6 uses, say, 8-point type, drawn with whatever pixels your screen setting makes available. ACR and Bridge use 8-pixel-tall type, which is simply blown up (not redrawn with sharper edges) if you use less than the native 2560 x 1600 screen setting.