Bars and Beats lines hard to see

[ramonetl]

Hi all, probably a dumb question but during editing on my monitor I struggle to see the lines in the bars and beats when editing. Its blends in against the gray and I tried dark mode and that was even harder to see. Any way to edit the color scheme for that or make the lines say a bright blue? Probably not but I am guessing I am not the only one who has this issue. I guess I am getting old... Thanks. Peter

[climber]

There is quite a lengthy thread about making changes to the colors in dark mode. Do a search.

[albee1952]

As another "old dog" with old eyes, sometimes messing with the monitor's contrast and brightness can make a big difference. My EDIT window is a 43" LED TV and the brightness is set to 30%. I arrived at that setting when Melodyne was looking awful(no gradient at all between the scale divisions) and changing this made the plugin look right again. I often scratch my head on how(why?) LED TV's can show such poor color and contrast when compared to even a cheap computer LED screen(my 2nd screen is an Acer 27").

Beyond that, 4K screens can often be even worse(even though my 43" is a 4K TV, I run it at 1920x1080, which is the same as the Acer 27). I run my screens over/under and will keep it that way. When I started with dual screens, I ran side by side 24" and that was okay, but after experimenting with touchscreens a few years ago, the over/under setup just felt better for me(even though I dumped the touchscreen). At times, I have a 3rd screen above the EDIT screen and populate that with stuff that I was constantly moving(like the memory locations, system resource meters and a large metering plugin). At the moment, I don't have that screen up, but it will be coming back soon

Re DARK mode; I keep trying it with each update, but I keep going back to Classic mode as I find it much easier on these old eyes....

[ramonetl]

Originally Posted by climber

There is quite a lengthy thread about making changes to the colors in dark mode. Do a search.

I did do some searching and there is a long ass 45 page one on dark mode I spent time reviewing. But nothing in my search was helpful with what I am trying to do which is make the lines brighter or change them outright. I am not talking about track colors btw. I actually went back to classic mode because DM made the issue worse for me. For what its worth, i did do some digging before I posted but found nothing specific to my ask. In the thread I think you refer to there is a ptcolors.txt referenced on page 12 that I am going to play with. I suspect my 4k monitor is playing a part here as the other poster mentioned. PD

PS I am still working through that thread so maybe my answer will be found in a later post but its taking me time to read it all.

[ramonetl]

I feel like a total homer. I have been spending a lot of time looking for a better way to make those lines visible that it never occurred to me to click the Bars | Beats yet as I just did and it switched to light grey with the focus and the lines easily visible. I feel quite stupid now. Thanks for the suggestions though.

[daeron80]

Originally Posted by ramonetl

I suspect my 4k monitor is playing a part here as the other poster mentioned.

If you haven't already, set PT to 150% magnification. Oddly and frustratingly, Avid hasn't yet seen fit to make PT look good on 4K.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by ramonetl

I feel like a total homer. I have been spending a lot of time looking for a better way to make those lines visible that it never occurred to me to click the Bars | Beats yet as I just did and it switched to light grey with the focus and the lines easily visible. I feel quite stupid now. Thanks for the suggestions though.

I'm one of the fellows that did major work on the dark mode issue. I've made some changes to the file that I posted in that thread that make the bars/beats line more visible. Email me from a regular email address and I'll send you the file I'm currently using.


One of the things to making the lines more visible is to change the background color of the tracks and that's done in the file. Also keep in mind that what may be easily visible to one person might not work for another due to differences in color perception.