Apple's latest 4K and 5K iMacs support a 10-bit graphics driver on OS X El Capitan, allowing for smoother color transitions, according to German website Mac & i. The 10-bit color output enables 1024 gradations per color channel, a significant increase from 256 with 8-bit depth on previous iMacs.
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Digital filmmaking news website cinema5D explains the technical benefits of 10-bit color depth for professional colorists, photographers and editors:
Professionals know that 10-bit screen color is the desired color depth for serious color correction. When you work in 8-bit you often see banding artefacts and lose detail on soft gradients which makes editing harder and less accurate.
This is not to be confused with the bit depth of your source files. We all know that working with video DSLRs or other heavily compressed video footage that is limited to 8 bit color depth gives you less options during grading and 10 bit, 12 bit or even 16 bit color photos and videos are better. On the screen side 10 bit is the desired depth to let you view the end result without gradation steps.
The new 10-bit color depth reportedly only works within the Preview and Photos applications for now, but other third-party software should eventually take advantage of the technology. The 2014 5K iMac also supports 10-bit color depth on OS X El Capitan, according to these reports.
Top Rated Comments
The secret is that reproduction of light intensity by pixels, as well as the capturing of light intensity by photosensors, is linear. Half the value, half as much light.
The eye, on the other hand, does not process light information linearly. We tend to be able to pick out detail in medium dark areas better than those in very dark or very light areas.
As such, if you were to use 7 or 8 bit color, the eye can easily see incremental changes in color in the middle brightness band, whereas incremental changes in very bright parts of the band are nearly impossible to discern.
By increasing the bit level, you better cover this gap in the perceptual gamut of the eye. You could get the same value in 7 pixels by applying a mapping function equivalent to the eye's discrimination to the hardware pixels and to the light signal in memory.
However, you'd find this used a LOT more resources and was incorrect far more often than simply pushing some extra bits. That's because mapping is computationally expensive, every eye is different and it's unlikely a mapping function on commodity hardware and in commodity software is going to meet your exact need.
It seems like every iMac discussion going forward, no matter what cool feature it is they added, is going to quickly diverge into complaints about how crappy the disk is and how that completely overshadows anything else they do.
They no longer hold themselves to that higher standard. They are now selling a computer which truly is garbage. Their 5400 disk iMacs are so frustrating to use that the experience damages their brand and reputation. And non-tech consumers just don't know enough to avoid this trap. They'll buy the base model because it's cheapest or simply in stock, and assume that no matter what, they can rely on Apple to give them a solid product. That's what Apple is known for, after all. But they will feel swindled as soon as they start using it. It offers a horrible user experience right out of the box.
As an Apple fan and shareholder, I do not like where this is headed. I don't think it's in the best interest of Apple to degrade its reputation by sacrificing the quality of their products. I want them to keep being awesome, not become yet another computer maker willing to sell whatever cheap drivel they can.
Now I can buy a 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD for less than £120. Apple could easily get that far cheaper, that's not in question.
5400RPMs in 2015, with those specs, and at that price, is a joke. You can't even swap it out for an SSD. No appreciation of longevity, or value for money. Raise the price by £100 if you have to, and throw in a 256GB PCI-e SSD on the base model. Just don't offer 5400RPM drives for Christ's sake.