As for effective resolution, the traditional definition doesn't even apply to displays, because as far as I know there's never been (and still isn't) a display that has x number of pixels but renders it in such a way that less than x pixels of information can actually be extracted.

That is exactly the situation we have now. The actual resolution is very high, but software effectively limits the height and width in pixels to something smaller. That means if you're organizing windows you are effectively limited to a smaller resolution and if you are designing an application you are effectively limited to a smaller resolution. Effective resolution is a near perfect term for the situation we are dealing with. Effective due to all of the bold above, and resolution due to the common use of the term. You'll have to get over the fact that language changes, and what something meant a year ago in niche groups may be taken over to refer to something else in a different context. It's hardly the first time something like that has happened and it won't be the last. Are you freaking out over the fact that gay doesn't refer to being happy anymore? Here are a few more words for you to rage on about.

Words that have changed their meaning

And now with Photoshop CS6. Both images are set to display "actual" pixels.

Maximum Effective Resolution (1920x1200)


"Retina" Resolution (1440x900)

That is exactly the situation we have now. The actual resolution is very high, but software effectively limits the height and width in pixels to something smaller. That means if you're organizing windows you are effectively limited to a smaller resolution and if you are designing an application you are effectively limited to a smaller resolution. Effective resolution is a near perfect term for the situation we are dealing with. Effective due to all of the bold above, and resolution due to the common use of the term. You'll have to get over the fact that language changes, and what something meant a year ago in niche groups may be taken over to refer to something else in a different context.

One more time: is the resolution, that is, the number of pixels in a given space, limited? Because if so, then yes, effective resolution is a good term. If not, then it's not. I'm not referring to what it meant a year ago in niche groups; I'm referring to what it means now in everything except (maybe?) reviews of OS X running on this particular machine. Meaning images, videos, camera sensors, camera lenses, eyes, etc.

It's hardly the first time something like that has happened and it won't be the last. Are you freaking out over the fact that gay doesn't refer to being happy anymore? Here are a few more words for you to rage on about.

Words that have changed their meaning[/quote]

Don't pretend that this is an issue of prescriptive versus descriptive language; if I had understood what you meant by "maximum resolution" in the first place, and was objecting for the hell of it, it would have been one thing. In this case I still have basically no idea what you're talking about.

I thought, given the first two images, that you were referring to the rendering objects at higher DPI but the same size (that is, a higher resolution) was somehow not actually a higher resolution. This is, once again, contrary to what resolution actually is.

Now, though, those pictures of Photoshop actually show Photoshop running at a lower resolution relative to the desktop elements. This is a completely different situation than what I've been talking about all along, and it's also a completely different situation than I thought you were talking about all along. Your insistence on using terms in the most obscure and oblique senses possible means that at this point I have absolutely no idea what's going on.

I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm confused. There seem to be multiple completely different issues here, and I have no idea what they are.

Also, you still haven't answered my question as to whether any of the numerous ways of getting OS X to actually run at the full resolution work or not.

EDIT: Just to be entirely clear, if that's the only way to run Photoshop, then yes, I would completely agree that the effective resolution is lower than advertised due to a software problem. On the other hand, for software that runs at a higher DPI (that is, a higher resolution) but scales UI elements relative to screen size (not actual pixels), in a resolution-independent way, "effective resolution" is not the appropriate term, and finding a couple of people who confuse these two scenarios does not make it so.

I believe you're confused due to your experience with digital photography. The vast majority of people who use laptops use resolution simply to refer to width / height in pixels and they have no history with the term resolution as it relates to camera sensors or digital images. What Apple has done is taken a high pixel density screen, and made it appear to all software running on the computer as if it has 1440x900 pixels to work with. This enables the operating system to upscale things like fonts and UI elements to 2880x1800 and then they are rendered as if the screen was 1440x900 effectively smoothing out the edges. Applications running on the desktop do not have access to the full native resolution that the display provides, that is abstracted away by the operating system and the application itself only sees 1440x900.

What this means is that by default, the Retina MBP and the non-retina MBP will display applications at the exact same size and have the same screen real-estate, but the retina version will have slightly sharper fonts and icons. That is why I say that it has an effective resolution of 1440x900, because it's the exact same real-estate as a non-retina 1440x900 display. As I said, that can be increased to 1920x1200, which is good, but certainly not revolutionary.

Just to be completely and absolutely clear, you seem to have defined "effective resolution" in such a way that these two images (both 256x256 crops from your earlier images)

[attachment=9891:lowres.png][attachment=9892:highres.png]

have the same effective resolution.

I submit that, by all reasonable definitions of "effective resolution," the one on the left is lower.

Oops, you got that last post in before mine. I do see what you mean, but I think the difference between the two images I posted is still an important point. For instance, I've seen things that show the retina display running video editing software with a 1920x1080 preview window (fully rendered at this resolution) inside of an application, with the UI elements on the outside. This, to me, is exactly what the retina display should be able to do.

On the other hand, the Photoshop image you've posted shows the opposite end of the spectrum; we'd both agree that it's being displayed at an effective resolution far lower than 2880x1800.

Issues related to resolution-independent rendering, like your first two screenshots display, fall somewhere in between these two situations, because they're being rendered at the appropriate resolution (DPI) but taking up too much space.

All I want to do is differentiate between these situations, and it's impossible to do that with ambiguous terminology that equates them.

Just to be completely and absolutely clear, you seem to have defined "effective resolution" in such a way that these two images (both 256x256 crops from your earlier images)

[attachment=9891:lowres.png][attachment=9892:highres.png]

have the same effective resolution.

I submit that, by all reasonable definitions of "effective resolution," the one on the left is lower.

In the context of image resolution, yes that is correct. I believe we're dealing with the difference between image resolution and display resolution. It's also not my definition of effective resolution, it is a very common usage of the term.

From the Apple store:

[color=#000000]Supported resolutions: 2880 by 1800 pixels (Retina); scaled resolutions: 1920 by 1200, 1680 by 1050, 1280 by 800, and 1024 by 640 pixels[/quote]

In the context of image resolution, yes that is correct. I believe we're dealing with the difference between image resolution and display resolution. It's also not my definition of effective resolution, it is a very common usage of the term.

From the Apple store:

[color=#000000]Supported resolutions: 2880 by 1800 pixels (Retina); scaled resolutions: 1920 by 1200, 1680 by 1050, 1280 by 800, and 1024 by 640 pixels

[/quote]

I have to disagree again there. The Macbook pro can definitely, with default settings, display a 2880x1800 image at full resolution; I've seen it do so at an Apple store a week ago. It's also clear that there are cases where it should do this, but doesn't; this is something I was not aware of prior, so I thank you for bringing my attention to this. However, I still think that this is far more nuanced than "image" or "display" resolution, since it's only sometimes an issue. Furthermore, I think the Apple store is clearly referring to actual lower resolutions (as in, not a higher DPI or anything) scaled up to fit the display, as has been the traditional usage before Mac made an awkward (and possibly failed) attempt at making UI elements resolution-independent.

In fact, I don't think you'll find any usage of "effective resolution" that would reasonably interpret the first images you posted anything other than 2880x1800 outside of reviews of the Macbook Pro from the past four months; I do think it would apply perfectly well to the images of Photoshop that you posted, though.

For instance, I've seen things that show the retina display running video editing software with a 1920x1080 preview window (fully rendered at this resolution) inside of an application, with the UI elements on the outside. This, to me, is exactly what the retina display should be able to do.

I'm not sure what software that would have been, but you can access the full display resolution outside of a desktop application. Full screen games for instance aren't rendered through quartz and can use the full 2880x1800 however they want. I can play Diablo 3 on here (poorly) at that resolution. It also appears that you can run create opengl views in your applications that have access to high resolution mode which would give them actual display pixel rendering capabilities. It may just be a matter of the software taking time to catch up. What's not clear to me is whether I would be able to leverage those applications well in a scaled mode because the default "retina" mode which effectively limits the screen real-estate to 1440x900 is painfully cramped.

The Macbook pro can definitely, with default settings, display a 2880x1800 image at full resolution; I've seen it do so at an Apple store a week ago.

How? Preview operates the same way that photoshop does in this example. I do not have any applications which operate the way you say they are supposed to operate.

[background=rgb(250, 251, 252)]In fact, I don't think you'll find any usage of "effective resolution" that would reasonably interpret the first images you posted anything other than 2880x1800 outside of reviews of the Macbook Pro from the past four months; I do think it would apply perfectly well to the images of Photoshop that you posted, though.[/background]

[/quote]

I believe that's due to the screen capture tool massaging the images. When I took at screenshot at 1440x900 the resulting image was 2880x1800 and when I took the screenshot at 1920x1200, the resulting image was 3840x2400.