Apple Unlocks 'billions' more Colors in Latest iMacs

The latest retina iMacs already display colors very accurately, but with El Capitan, Apple now uses their their full potential. According to German publication Mac & i, the new OS X version now outputs 30-bits of color instead of 24-bits. That means that you'll now see over a billion colors instead of 16 million on 2014 or 2015 5K iMacs, according to tests by Mac & i, though it may also work on other models. The feature only supports Apple's Preview and Photos for now, but may come to Final Cut Pro and other apps that can take advantage of it.

This mostly helps professional image editors, but regular folks can see a dramatic difference for certain types of images. In a sky like the blown-up image below, for instance, where there's a subtle gradation between shades of blue, you get nasty, stair-stepped "banding." With 30-bits of color (normally referred to as "10-bit color") those gradations are smoothed out, resulting in a more natural image. For now, RAW photos will look better when displayed the new iMacs, but in the future, it may make help movies, too. Amazon, for one, now supports extra colors with its 4K HDR streaming.

The latest iMac (2015) not only handles 100 percent of the sRGB color gamut, but also the more demanding "DCI-P3" gamut used by pricey digital cinema projectors. That means they can display billions of colors without cheating, unlike some 8-bit panels that "dither" colors to fake it. Prior to the release of El Capitan, OS X has been hampered by its 16 million color display limitation -- Windows has supported it since version 7. That was never a big deal before, but all of Apple's 27-inch 5K iMacs can actually use the feature. If you're equipped with the latest Mac and have El Capitan, you can load up RAW photos with more than 8-bit color (not JPEGs) and you should be able to spot the difference. Meanwhile, we've reached out to Apple for a bit more information.