Vista 64 bit and CS4 and color management

[John Hennessy]

This is a question about Vista 64 bit and CS4 and color management. I scan 4x5 film and sometimes end up with up to, or even bigger than, 1 GB files. Obviously that needs as much memory as possible. Windows XP is limited in this regard and I am in the market for a new speedy computer which won't force me to stay at a snail's pace. In this month's Shutterbug, David Brooks in his Q&A column says to avoid Vista for color management reasons, but offers no explanation or support for his opinion. He implies one should wait for Windows 7 for some unstated reason. With a calibrated monitor and printer and Photoshop controlling color files sent to the printer, why would Vista be any different or worse than XP? Is he on to something or just pontificating? Does anyone know any reliable info about Windows 7 that would make it worth waiting for?

Thanks

[Kerik Kouklis]

I'm running Vista64 and CS4 on a Quad core machine with 8 gb of RAM. It's a great setup for large files. He statement about color management makes no sense to me. That said, I'm hearing very good things about Windows 7. Stable and much "lighter weight" than Vista (although my experience with Vista64 is very good - no stability issues) and therefore faster.

[Bill L.]

I hate Vista, but I love the opportunity to run a 64 bit machine with cs4. I've had no color management issues, once I managed to find the hidden drivers for my pantone i1 spyder. I will probably be an early adopter of Windows 7, though, because Vista has not been a particularly stable platform for me. That being said, the upgrade in speed in working on my 4x5 scans was worth it - I just mumble a lot under my breath about what I'd do to the Vista designers. . .

Cheers!
Bill

[Brian Ellis]

I switched to Vista 64 bit (new Dell computer) from XP a couple months ago and am very happy so far. I don't know why Vista got such a bad rap, maybe it was from earlier versions or maybe it's like a friend who's much more of a computer geek than I am says - that Vista often gets blamed for problems that are actually problems with something else. But in any event, I've had no problems with Vista - color management or otherwise, and Photoshop just flies with 8 gigs of RAM and a quad core processor. I debated about waiting for Windows 7 but I figured that between the time before it hits the market and the time it will take to get the bugs worked out I'd be looking at at least another year, perhaps two.

[Ken Lee]

"I don't know why Vista got such a bad rap"

One of the reasons that Vista was poorly received, was that while it often required time and expense to upgrade, many people concluded that it offered inadequate improvements in return. In other words, not enough bang for the buck, or Return on Investment. Many companies with large installed user bases, saw big savings, simply by ignoring a "Vista rollout" entirely. Mine did, and it's in the business of software engineering. Many others did too, across a wide spectrum of business sectors.

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.

Macs, on the other hand, ship with dual-headed graphics cards, and OS X provides native support for profiling an unlimited number of external monitors. In this context, you might say that they are designed by Design professionals, for Design professionals.

[Brian Ellis]

"I don't know why Vista got such a bad rap"

One of the reasons that Vista was poorly received, was that while it often required time and expense to upgrade, many people concluded that it offered inadequate improvements in return. In other words, not enough bang for the buck, or Return on Investment. Many companies with large installed user bases, saw big savings, simply by ignoring a "Vista rollout" entirely. Mine did, and it's in the business of software engineering. Many others did too, across a wide spectrum of business sectors.

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.

Macs, on the other hand, ship with dual-headed graphics cards, and OS X provides native support for profiling an unlimited number of external monitors. In this context, you might say that they are designed by Design professionals, for Design professionals.

Thanks Ken, that's interesting. I made a bunch of upgrades at the same time - Vista, 64 bit, 8 gigs of RAM, quad core, etc. so it's hard to say what benefits relate to Vista and what to other things. I had no color management problems with XP and haven't had any with Vista so I don't know whether any improvements in color management have been made with Vista or not. I used two monitors in school but haven't felt the need for two since then so that aspect of Vista hasn't concerned me. I'm definitely not a design professional.

[PenGun]

Windows 7 works well. It has not seriously upset me yet. The last windose that did that was NT 3.51. Vista ... oh lord.

I'm a Linux user. A pox on both Steve and Bill. Steve actually took a nice *nix (FreeBSD from the Berkeley Software Distribution where the amazing BSD network stack was born on computer systems with thousands of computer science students trying to own the box. Bill stole it about NT 4.) and got it half way to windows.

You can download Win 7 RC from M$ or torrent it. All you need is a key M$ will give you and the RC is good till June 2010. It will upgrade Vista but you need a real install for XP. Recommended if you need windows.

[Dave Jeffery]

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.

[Ken Lee]

"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."

That's another reason why Vista had such a cool reception among so many. I have seen graphs which show that with each new release of Windows, performance has decreased at the same time that hardware requirements have increased. Time to market has also increased with each new release.

[Wallace_Billingham]

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

[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.

[Ken Lee]

That's good to know. Do you know if Spyder manages the profiles ?

In other words, can you see/manage monitor profiles outside of Spyder ?

[Wallace_Billingham]

On my system which uses Vista and a Spyder 2 it keeps the profiles in the windows system folder along with all the other color profiles.

Every time I boot up my system it starts off being uncalibrated then the Spyder Software loads the calibration and reminds me if it has been more than 2 weeks since I last calibrated

[Rakesh Malik]

I think the Spyder3 works pretty much the same way. AFAIK they're still standard ICC profiles.

There are limitations on graphics cards -- not all of them allow the Spyder to upload two separate profiles to the card. Mine did not, in fact, allow me to calibrate both monitors independently when I got it. I called DataColor's customer service, and they told me that the graphics card has to support independent lookup tables for that to work, so I checked for a driver update from nVidia, and after installing that, I could calibrate both independently.

The Spyder software uploads the ICC profiles though, just like before, so what Wallace said should still hold.

[bglick]

For working with large files, 1 - 2 gig.... what is price tag of the hottest quad PC loaded with max Ram ?? a range is fine, TYIA