Vista 64 bit and CS4 and color management

[Rider]

That's been pretty much my experience. Vista soars on a low-to-medium end late 2008 system (which basically is quad core with 8 Gig). Microsoft was wrong to market Vista widely as an upgrade or allow it to be installed on low-end computers when it came out. They should have taken that "Vista" sticker put on computers much more seriously. This wasn't the case with Windows XP. When I upgraded a computer from Windows 98 to Windows XP in 2001, it actually ran better (which is probably a testament to how bad Windows 98 was). But this does not mean that Vista is worse than XP. For an individual artist or photographer who can afford to spend a few hundred dollars more on a computer (I bought mine last Thanksgiving for around $550 without monitor), Vista is the way to go without a question. If I had tried to "upgrade" my circa 2003 desktop from XP to Vista, I'm sure I would have hated it. Windows 7 sounds like it will be a modest improvement over Vista, but you have to wait to get it. Vista is a huge improvement over XP for the indvidual--I am not a large corporation and don't know or care what their needs are--and it's available now.

I have not encountered any color calibration issues, which are basically handled by the software that comes with your color calibration device.

I have run Vista since it first came out but used it with a brand new machine I built just for it.

The problems with Vista is that it really is not a good OS for older or slower computers. Right or wrong the team at Microsoft built it for the hardware that was high end when it first came out, and the hardware that they figured would be lowend by the time its product cycle was over. So when Harry and Sally tried to run it on their cheapo system they got at Kmart in 2002 it gave them issues.

As such it was not really an "upgrade" but a new OS for new hardware.

As far as color management goes, as long as you have a good monitor, a good video card, and someway to calibrate the two it works great

[mcfactor]

After using a spyder to calibrate my laptop monitor (a new toshiba), vista only ocassionally seems to remeber the settings. It applies the settings automatically when i turn on the computer, but if the screen turns off, so do the setting and i have to reboot the computer. It has been very frustrating and when I looked into it a couple of months ago, i was told there was no fix (yet). anyone else have the same problem?

[Brian Ellis]

After using a spyder to calibrate my laptop monitor (a new toshiba), vista only ocassionally seems to remeber the settings. It applies the settings automatically when i turn on the computer, but if the screen turns off, so do the setting and i have to reboot the computer. It has been very frustrating and when I looked into it a couple of months ago, i was told there was no fix (yet). anyone else have the same problem?

That's interesting. How do you know you need to reboot when the screen turns off (i.e. how do you know it hasn't remembered the settings?) Do you get a message or something?

[mcfactor]

I can see that the colors have changed. The difference is very noticeable. The laptop's natural colors are terrible and the blacks are extremely washed out

[Rider]

Who told you there was no fix for it, Spyder or Toshiba?

[Steve Wadlington]

My vista laptop goes back to factory color settings every time I boot it. Xrite has a download app that allows you to pick profiles and click on it to go back to last monitor calibration.

[Klyment Tan]

I think that you're just asking for trouble if you're expecting reliable colour from a laptop display no matter how well you try to calibrate and profile it. When I started shooting digitally, I foolishly thought that I could replace my dark room with a speedy (at the time) laptop with a decent screen. I was happy for a while. I picked up colour profiling hardware. Colour profiling significantly reduced the tonal range of the laptop display and introduced a lot of strange side effects that made the display unusable. I have had similar results with dozens of laptops, including some earlier Macbook/Pro displays (though they weren't as bad as some others).


I have been using Vista 64 since early 2008 and have been very happy with how it has performed for me. 8-24gigs of RAM in computers, NEC Spectraview 90series LCDs with NEC/Lacie Spectraview/Blue Eye software and I haven't had any issues.

[Kuzano]

Windows 7 is moving from beta just now, to RC1... (Release Candidate 1)

Those of us who have been on beta with Windows 7 just got our offer to download the RC. The RC is slated to expire in July... as I recall, and Windows 7 will be replacing it.

I work on and teach computer classes. I would heartily discourage a move to Vista (as I always have), particularly with the replacement just around the corner.

Those running Vista and "loving" it are most likely to file for "divorce" and start courting Windows 7 as soon as they see how it kicks butt all over Vista. The beta experience has been a real eye-opener, and perhaps MS got one right. Heaven knows they need a good new release experience. It's been a long time (and Vista is still not right and will never be fixed. Further development is over.

[Brian Ellis]

I've heard that people with quad core CPU's and lots of RAM are OK with Vista and that older hardware did not run Vista well which caused a lot of frustration. If you are buying the latest hardware Vista is great, otherwise just use XP if you don't want to upgrade just yet.

A lot of compatability problems were a result of quirky drivers for programs running with Vista as well, and it not the OS's fault. I also read that the MS developers are writing new drivers for Windows 7 that will run older legacy programs that Vista will not run, and that the newest drivers that work for Vista will run on Windows 7. I'm running the first beta release of Windows 7 and it seems cleaner but one of the first programs I tried to install wouldn't run due to the drivers not being updated yet so the OS is still just a toy. Windows 7 beta is lean but it's not bloated with every driver under the sun yet and there are still a few too many nag screens for my liking.

I recently looked at some benchmark tests where Photoshop CS3 was still shown to be a little faster with XP than Vista with the latest harware.

As for color management I have no specific information.

I use CS3. I can promise you that it flies with Vista, much much faster than XP ever was, at least on my computer with 8 gigs of RAM (vs 2 on my old XP computer which no doubt also contributes to the better speed) and easily installed updates for my hardware.

[Rakesh Malik]

As far as I know, neither Vista nor Windows 7 offer any improvements in support for color management. (But please correct me if I am wrong). While Windows has supported the ability to use more than one monitor for a long time, it does not allow them to be profiled separately. The last time I checked, there was a "plugin" application for XP, but I could never get it to work on my PC.

It works fine on mine, I calibrate both monitors independently with a Syder3 Elite.