Customize Font Size and Window Layout

[ulim]

Is it possible to make (for me) important fields larger (so they don't overflow) and the font size bigger, while losing some less important fields? I have included a screenshot that shows some of the things I would like to adjust.

[fabrizio.giudici]

I definitely second this request (I was going to post about that). With hi-dpi displays at higher resolutions (which of course are very useful for working on images) fonts are way too small. I hoped that macOS Sonoma fixed this with a global settings, but I see it doesn't affect automatically applications.

[Hert]

Psu uses the os settings. To get larger fonts, up the text size in macOS display settings.
FYI, that doesn’t impact image displaying. Images are always displayed at the monitor’s native resolution…hi-dpi

[fabrizio.giudici]

If you're referring to the option of macOS versions prior to Sonoma that concerned the text size (as explained here), it changed the overall resolution of the screen. PSU surely uses the max dpi available, but the operating system has already reduced it.

In any case that option is no more available in Sonoma — or, better, it has been redesigned and correctly called as “display resolution”.

Sonoma has a new setting for changing text size without affecting resolution, but it doesn't work for any application other than the system ones enumerated in the panel (see below). Actually I have to resize fonts in each application that allows to do that (e.g. Firefox, Thuderbird, IntelliJ Idea...).

Screenshot 2024-05-28 at 14.21.47.jpg (128.46 KiB) Viewed 4110 times

Screenshot 2024-05-28 at 14.22.27.jpg (129.78 KiB) Viewed 4110 times

[Hert]

This is what I'm referring to in macOS Sonoma 14.5

SonomaDisplay.jpg (247.79 KiB) Viewed 4102 times

By adjusting the scaling in the OS, that does not impact image quality, only fonts and UI components. That is how scaling works. You don't need to configure macOS (or Windows for that matter) to use no scaling to utilise the native resolution of your monitor to display images. Images are always displayed at full resolution capability, regardless the scaling setting. Scaling is for your convenience.

[fabrizio.giudici]

By adjusting the scaling in the OS, that does not impact image quality, only fonts and UI components. That is how scaling works.

No, it is not. It's also clear from the Displays settings too: if you go to “Advanced" and enable the option "Show resolutions as list", what it's labeled as "Larger text... More space" is shown as a list of resolutions.
To further prove it, I've set "Larger text", taken a screenshot, set "More space" and taken another screenshot. As you can see, the resulting images have different resolution. Clearly the physical resolution of the monitor can't change, but the pixels are interpolated.

Code: Select all

mistral:~/Desktop> exiftool "Screenshot 2024-06-22 at 20.27.57.png" | grep -i size
File Size                       : 2.2 MiB
Image Size                      : 4096x2560
mistral:~/Desktop> exiftool "Screenshot 2024-06-22 at 20.28.09.png" | grep -i size
File Size                       : 807 KiB
Image Size                      : 2304x1440

[fabrizio.giudici]

The topic is described on a number of macOS users' forums. This exchange on Reddit is probably the most clear about it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments ... _settings/

[Hert]

By setting More Space, the UI elements will be smaller, hence more space. But the image resolution is identical because images in software that supports scaling (such as PSU, but also Photos, Lightroom, etc) all show the image in its original monitor resolution. When selecting "Large Text" then you get less space, but you see the image the same as when using More Space.

It's a general misconception that images are being scaled with the OS, they are not. On a 2K/4K/5K/8K monitor you see images in 2K/4K/5K/8K... regardless the OS scaling.

FWIW; this applies to Windows as well as macOS.

Try this:
1. Close PSU
2. Set macOS to Large Text
3. Start PSU
4. Open an image in the Viewer
5. View at 100%
6. Make a screenshot
7. Close PSU
8. Set macOS to More Space
9. Repeat 3, 4, 5, and 6

Here are the results to support what I'm saying.
(save the screenshot to disk to see the original as the forum software displays the images to fit the board)

The screenshot with Large Text, image at 100% view, meaning 1:1:

LargeText_100.jpg (627.95 KiB) Viewed 3752 times

The screenshot with More Space, image again at 100%, 1:1

MoreSpace_100.jpg (1.6 MiB) Viewed 3752 times

And here both screenshots are overlayed.

MoreSpace_100_LargeText_100_Overlay.jpg (1.54 MiB) Viewed 3752 times

As you can see, the image is in the exact same resolution...the monitor's original resolution. So while you see less at "Large Text", the image is *not* scaled. The UI elements are scaled are are sharper with scaling than without. Simply because there are more pixels to display the UI elements and texts.
In summary, scaling the monitor in the OS to level where you get elements at a convenient level (typical the "Default" setting in macOS) gives you a better UI *and* images still utilise the maximum capabilities of your monitor.

When Apple first came with their retina displays, that is what shocked the world as macOS suddenly looked so much better as it used 2x scaling (fixed back then).