And so, whining graphic designers rejoice around the world. Anyway, the 15-inch MacBook Pros get the same non-glossy displays of the previous generation, albeit with a $50 charge, something I’m sure will be worth the price for the designer masses. To clarify: I’ve never held anything against the glossy screen, while often wondering why many web designers complain about it when only print designers are affected by its slight color inaccuracies. Even then, glossy displays often outperform matte displays if properly calibrated:
I suspect that the false comparison with the paper stock argument feeds another persistent myth, which is that glossy screens are not for professionals. Let’s just leave aside the the fact that an image on a monitor will never entirely match an image printed on paper no matter what kind of screen you have, for a variety of reasons not least amongst them the differences between subtractive and additive color cited above. The simple fact of the matter is that a matte screen, far from a neutral view, is actually distorted when compared to a glossy screen. The matte coating that diffuses glare and reflections also works on the image on the screen, reducing contrast and saturation.