Display Colors Out of Whack

The other day while just using my MBP as per usual, the colors just.. sorta changed. It wasn't like the "White on black" or "Black on white" or whatever setting is in Universal Access. Everything's in pastels, really; a lot of blues and yellows and purples. (My background is the standard OS X background, and it's purple, pink, gold, green, purple...) Things are also a bit noisy. On top of that, the colors are weird as it starts up (e.g., the Apple logo at startup has a weird, noisy outline), and are just as weird in Vista.
I'm guessing it's a GPU issue or something, but I'm a bit busy with college stuff, so I figured I'd see if there's anything else I could try before calling tech support. (It's still under warranty.)

This happens to me about 50% of the time when I restart (and has only happened on restart so far). Zapping the PRAM always fixes it, but not very permanently.
I restart more often that I used to because of Bootcamp, so while not a huge deal, this is pretty annoying. I have not yet had it happen when restarting from Windows -> OSX, only from OSX -> Windows, or OSX -> OSX.
Taking a screenshot does not capture the problem, so I'm attaching the following picture taken with my digital camera. This is the standard startup screen, so it should be a bunch of pretty blues, not the hideous mess it actually is!
http://www.msykes.com/temp/crazyscreen.jpg
msykes

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LCD display colors all washed out

Hi,
I bought my MacBook pro about a week ago and I've noticed that the display colors are all washed out. I have to tilt the display down in order to see the some colors.
Has anyone else experienced this?

I am not sure that 10.6.2 solved this issue.
I just transferred all the users from my PowerBook G4 to a new iMac with 10.6.2. On one of the users on the PBG4, the icons (and other images [like photos in iPhoto]) were "washed out" or "over saturated" [I am not sure how best to describe it...] The colours for all the other users on the PBG4 are fine. I tried recalibrating on the PBG4, but this made no difference. I thought this could be explained by the fact the PBG4 was getting a bit old, but the situation is the same on the new iMac as well; the same user account has these washed out/over saturated colours. Re-calibration on the iMac made no difference either.
When this account (with odd colours) first starts up, the desktop image loads and for a few (milli-) seconds the colours are OK. Then suddenly they change, as if some kind a file had been read which changes the colour balance. Does anyone know what that file could be or how to identify it? I am thinking that if it could be delete, a new default would be created and all would be well.
CF

Colors in Pages out of whack?

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Display colors suddenly off

Just added RAM and a new external harddrive to my mac and now the color on my display is all out of whack. Whites have a red tinge, reflex blues are cyan, and greens are desaturated. Recalibrated and tried adjusting color settings on the monitor itself but it still doesn't look right.
Here are the specs:
G4 Mac mirrored front running 10.4.11
LaCie d2Quadra external HD (just added)
ViewSonic VA720 monitor
Any suggestions much appreciated!

Okay, long story short: I tried disconnecting the LaCie, restarting and resetting the PRAM and the screen still had a magenta cast but I noticed the color on the screen flicker back to normal for a second, so I poked around in the back a bit and discovered the DVI cable wasn't properly connected. Fixed that and problem solved.
Can you give me more info about the D2 problems of late?
Thanks for your help!

Display color problem - asking for a color solution

So I have this serious problem with my Macbook Pro.
Some months ago I suddenly saw green colors in black area's and pink line colors in white areas.
Text on white background was extremely frustrating to read, since it was surrounded with small pink lines and flickering.
Note this was only near max white and max black areas of the screen.
I found out that it was due to a hardware failure, since slightly bending the laptop (!!) would remove the problem
Attaching an external monitor doesn't show the defect, and booting in Windows 7 (bootcamp) still shows the same screen problem.
Searching the web, it appears that it was a NVidia related heat problem, known to my model, but the offer to get it fixed for free by apple (since it was a known issue) had already run out december 2012 (!!). I think my laptop is about 3-4 years old, and the battery pretty much died on me the first year, probably due to heavy usage and the graphic card getting too hot. There are small sweat/corosion marks of where my hand are placed when typing, on the aluminium, due to how hot my laptop got. It sometimes got so hot I couldn't touch the aluminium on the top left corner near the 1-2-Q-W keys.
Fixing my Macbook is too expensive. Just getting someone to look at it to diagnose it (without repairing it), costs a lot in my country, and we have no official apple store, only authorized resellers. I know it's probably the motherboard, because I tried to unscrew the backlid and gently touch certain area's on the motherboard with a pen, while the computer was still running, to find out where the short circuit was. I only started this kind of trying to "self service" it, because I knew how expensive replacing the motherboard would be (if that was even the issue?).
I have multiple times tried to place something up against the sensitive area's on the motherboard, and then screw back the backlid, to put some pressure on it, which at first worked brilliantly and removed the color issue for some weeks, before it started reappearing. I think the heat from the laptop slowly makes the motherboard adapt, and the problem returns. Extremely frustrating indeed.
I hope I can one day afford a Macbook Air, but until then, I don't want to throw more money after my poor macbook (which I pronbably can't sell anyway, like previous mac's I've owned, the day get a new. It's too worn out + battery got only 5min on a full charge).
I think it's wisest to rather save the money for a Macbook Air, and try to survive until then. Therefor I was hoping someone could help me with a temporary solution.
In Windows 7, using the Nvidia Control Panel to apply color management, I was able to adjust the individual color output values, and thereby remove the the screen issue! Maybe the colors are not as good anymore, but it sure beats not getting a headache after 10minutes trying to read an article.
I tried the same thing on the mac, using Preferences>Displays>Color>Calibrate, but this guide is much harder to use to get a decent result (since only the last 2 options really makes a difference, but changes the colors completely, which I can't change by going back to the first color settings since then it just undos the last step I just did. I'm currently writing this with a very blue pale screen.
I also tried to use ColorSync Utility, expecting to enter values manually, but contrary to the articles I read about using ColorSync, I cannot edit the values in the color profile I created (I can only change the ASCII text input fields). Trying to save the profile gives me the error 'The Document "screenbug.icc" could not be saved.'
I tried to look for alternative color calibration software, but most of them required hardware, or expensive full version to unlock the settings I needed (like SuperCal).
I hope some tech savy users out there that can help me, or at least make my life with my macbook less of a pain.
All help is much appreciated!!
PS: I've been a loyal Mac user since always. Few things I've learned is:
1) Don't buy the first version of new hardware. Wait about a month for reviews, to check for issues. I had a problem with an expensive MacPro that had to be replaced, but luckily for free since it was Apple's mistake. Sometimes Apple products also get minor internal changes/fixes without announcements, to help solve reported issues from early buyers.
3) Take care of you Mac, especially so because you can often sell your used Mac's for quite a value the day you want to upgrade. I've sold about 3 Mac's in my lifetime, for quite a gain, though I don't expect this macbook to do as well, if at all. But it's normally something to be cautious about.
3) Don't order custom configurations from the Apple Store, if you can live without it (+ it's usually crazy overprices). I payed extra to get the NVidia GeForce 9600M, and was happy with it for the first couple of years, but is now causing me all the problems I have today + made my Macbook worthless.
Stick with what the default configuration if possible, as other configurations might not have been tested carefully.

Who exactly is your comment "I am asking you to fix this problem soon" directed at?
Remember that you are posting on a user to user forum so nobody can really help you. If you want to give feedback to Apple, then contact them directly at http://www.apple.com/feedback.
Also, if you have an iPhone 3G and iOS 4.2.1 is the latest software that you can install on your phone, then there is absolutely nothing that anyone can do to fix the problem if you want to install Skype that requires iOS 4.3 - what do you think anyone can magically do?
iPhone 3G is a very old phone now and if you want to install Skype on your phone, then you need to go out and buy a new iPhone - either a 4s or a 5. Nothing more to it. Buy a new phone.

Bridge displays color images as b&w

I assume this has something to do with settings in Bridge CS4, my platform is MacBook Pro OS 6.8.10.
This question might confuse some people. To beging with, I do shoot my images in RAW files, I even have Bridge convert them to DNG files.
Upon download the images are displayed in color as they should be for RAW files. After editing images in Camera RAW, I convert most all images to sRGB. When some of those edited images come back to Bridge, they might be presented in B&W, though no color is lost to the file upon displaying in Photoshop, and I did not edit the file to be a B&W image. I have DNG, Canon RAW, Tif and Jpeg files, and most of these are displayed in color, but some are not, and I have not figured out the missing link just yet. So to be clear, I have Jpeg color images, displaying as b&w images, but they are color images. Only b&w images should be displayed as b&w.
This problems started once I learned I could edit one image in photoshop out of a series of images, then after editing, i could bring the single photo file back to bridge, and then copy/paste image settings onto a groups of images in Bridge, and all those images would then have the same adjustments made to them as a batch edit adjustment.
But now sometimes I get a B&W display on some images even when I do not apply a Bridge settings edits, and when I never edited the image for a B&W display. I has to a setting somewhere in Bridge, and I just have not figured it out yet.
Thanks in advance for all suggestions:

ssprengel wrote:
Yammer asked a pertinent question that remains unanswered—is that “settings” badge (small lines-triangles-in-a-circle) shown on the B/W image thumbnails (at least). If you’re not sure, then include a screenshot of a few Bridge thumbnails where some are color and some are B/W, using the little camera icon on the web version of the forum messages.
And the answer is NO!. I only have those showing up associated with the .DNG files (Camera RAW)
Another similar question would be if you see a B/W thumbnail in Bridge, try doing a right-click (or whatever the Mac equivalent is) and choose Open in Camera Raw. Is the image in B/W or color in Camera Raw.
A <Control Click> (on MAC), opens the .jpeg file in b&w, as shown in the thumbnail.
Can you upload three versions of one of the images that display as B/W: the original PSD/raw/TIF file, a normal Save As JPG that is in color, and a Save For Web JPG that is B/W? Use something like http://www.dropbox.com/ and post a public download link to the images, here.
NO, I thought I explained that real well. Only the .jpeg file that was saved through the "Save for Web" processing ( that is, the a jpeg the goes through greater compression to reduce image file size for web display), is the image file process that produces the b&w thumbnail in Bridge ONLY. All opened images, of various file formats (ie: DNG, Psd, Tif, Jpeg, & Jpeg for Web), all present Color presentations (for editing in Photoshop, and or in display browsers). It is only the thumbnail of that particular jpeg formatting processing for Web Images that produces the b&w image "THUMBNAIL" in Bridge.
When you Save As JPG or For Web, are you ever overwriting the original image with a new one or do you always save the PS-edited image with a new name?
No, never. I leave my RAW files, as RAW originals, and work on newly names images files.
A theory about what is happening is that Bridge uses Camera Raw to generate its thumbnails, and the images that are B/W have some embedded Camera Raw setting, perhaps pasted from a different filetype, that makes CR think the image should be rendered as B/W, but when you open the images on Photoshop, you are opening them directly, without using the Camera Raw plug-in, so any embedded settings are ignored, and the image displays in its original state without the settings having been applied.
It makes since, (what you are saying), and it certainly does respond in that fashion. Your suggestion to open Ctrl Click, or Right Click to open the thumbnail in Camera RAW, was an interesting test, and the response was to open the previously save color image with a b&w thumbnail, into Camera RAW as a b&w image. So Camera RAW is responding to what is in the xmp settings that describes this images thumbnail to be displayed b&w. It is weird that a browser does not.
As to what is in the window selections for the "Save for Web" editing windows, Presets for jpeg are :
Progressive
Optimize
Embed Color Profile
And I use Embed Color Profile.
Even the Preview button at the bottom of the window, shows the color image as displaying color.
I vaguely remember about a year ago doing some CS 4 Photoshop and Bridge web tutorials from an unnamed tutoring website and guy named D_k_ . It is his fault. Just kidding, I actually enjoy those tutorial.
**** Okay, this is perhaps originating from Camera RAW presets, where you can apply previously made settings to other images and then saved them as Presets. Though I don't have this checked in Camera RAW ( still something goofy is going on there), I did find that in Bridge I can reset the individual "saved for Web" image thumbnail back to the the color image by :
Right Click (Ctrl Click, MAC) on the thumbnail
menu down to the "Development Settings" and select :
"Previous Conversion", and this presents the color thumbnail.
I have now tested all the Camera RAW settings in Camera RAW, by opening an image in each one of these :
Image Settings
Camera RAW Defaults
Previous Conversion
Custom Settings
and then reducing image file size, and saving for the web, while changing file name, and each and every one of these Settings produces a Sepia Toned thumbnail. I found out the images were a subtle Sepia Toned image by enlarging the Bridge Thumbnails bigger for a better view. So I can correct the thumbnail after it has been created, but so far, I can't get the thumbnail to be correct on first creation of the web saved jpeg image file. Regular jpeg image file thumbnails save correctly.

Macbook display color problems

macbook, mac os 10.5.8 updated, display color problem. when i try to fix it by color sync. it says:
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/DCDM_X'Y'Z'.icc
Tag 'A2B1': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'B2A1': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'A2B2': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'B2A2': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'gamt': Requiredtag is not present.
The file is locked. could not be fixed.
/Library/Application Support/Adobe/Color/Profiles/DCI_P3.icc
Tag 'A2B1': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'B2A1': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'A2B2': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'B2A2': Requiredtag is not present.
Tag 'gamt': Requiredtag is not present.
The file is locked. could not be fixed.
Repair done - 0 out of 2 profiles fixed.
Kindly assist what to do.

Welcome to Apple Discussions!
Pictures would help. A good way to do this is to post them to a free photo sharing site like Flickr and then post a link.
Also, you are in the original MBP section, and I think you need to post your question in the newer MBP section:
http://discussions.apple.com/forum.jspa?forumID=1294
Good luck!

LG Monitor and New Mac Pro -- Colours out of Whack

I have an LG L226WT and a 20" Apple Cinema Display connected to a brand new Mac Pro.
Both monitors (in the same configuration) were running on my old PowerMac G5 before.
The Cinema Display works fine, colours are good, so is light etc.
The LG first had ghosting (severe at that) and this morning the colours are totally out of whack. Looking at some photos I had taken a week ago and colour corrected on the G5 now look like a child painted them (on the LG monitor, on the Cinemadisplay they are fine).
It's not the graphics card either. If I take a screenshot on the LG and look at it on the Cinemadisplay the colours etc. are correct, but the LG is right now pretty useless to me. I tried to calibrate it but the end result is pretty much the same, it just does not seem to want to play nice.
I don't think it is the DVI cable, as it is securely screwed in and in the same location as on the PowerMac, turning the monitor off / on seems to resolve the shadow problem but not the colour issue.
Anybody have experienced this? Any tips outside of trashing the LG and buying a new screen?

The ghosting issue is still one when I first turn the computer on. I found that I have to turn the monitor off and on and it resolves the issue.
I also found the source of my colour problem, it comes down to the LG "resetting" itself to some "automatic improvement" or whatever you want to call it, which completely messed with the tones. After I turned that "feature" off it worked well, but man, that took me three days to figure out.

Disconnect+reconnect external display = washed out image

hi guys
I need some expert help on this. Using a Dell E178 WFP external display on my 2010 Macbook Pro via mini-DVI-to-VGA adapter. This display has no EDID it seems so I use SwitchResX to create the necessary resolution override (1440x900). SwitchResX has nothing such as daemons or helpers installed on top, so this boils down to graphics drivers.
My problem: When I reboot the machine, the display has the necessary brightness, contrast, and colour balance. If I unplug the display, wait a sec, then plug it back in, the image comes up very bright and washed out, and I can't get a "true" black out of the display.
What this isn't: I have a ColorSync profile, and make sure it is successfullly loaded, i.e. I go through the trouble of opening up system preferences>displays>color to make sure it reloads. This is not a ColorSync problem. It is not the 2.2 vs 1.8 gamma problem either. Ctrl+shift+eject does not fix it. Creating a new colour profile does not fix it either. The usual SMC, permissions, safe boot, etc tricks don't work either.
Apple engineers have sent me a copy of TimingSnoop but were baffled by the display having a "fake" EDID (when run without SwitchResX TS detects no EDID at all). Since I refused to roll back my entire system to 10.6.4 or uninstall SwitchResX (it does not interfere??) they closed the bug stating "insufficient information".
10.6.4 did not have this problem, and my hardware is perfectly fine.
Rolling back the graphics to 10.6.4 fixes this issue (but creates other issues)
I'm looking for information on this. Has anyone had the same happen? Is it confined to sans-EDID displays?
Have googled a lot but I'm running out of search terms... Anything could be of help?
Thanks in advance.

Again, this is not the gamma problem that's fixed by just opening the display preferences and resetting the colour profile.
This seems to be somehow related to the display's EDID and the video adapter (Nvidia) not resetting properly when first unplugged and then plugged back in. My support request with Apple is more than a year old in total now and replies have been trickling but all of them add little (if anything at all) to a fix.
My particular problem is finding these "a lot of" people who are experiencing this problem. Everyone I've seen so far talks about the gamma/colours problem, never about the brightness and reboot. So yours is the first instance of someone having exactly the same problem. Hopefully we can find more people? Do you know where I should be looking?
Another idea I've had is to possibly talk to the OSX86 community? If Apple are not interesting in issuing a fix for this, maybe someone else has done some work? After reviewing Apple's code (at least that part which is made public) I'm pretty convinced this is in Nvidia's territory, and that gives me very little hope..
I'm interested to know if this has been fixed on Lion at all..? Ideas?

U430 dull display colors

I got a new u430 touch. Everything seems great except the display. I get the feeling that the colors are washed out and no black levels. Tried a simple test http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/black.php
Unable to see the first 5 black squares. Poor contrast. These are visible in my 5 yr old dell vostro. Is a dull display and lack of vivid colors on u430 normal? Pretty disappointed since display colors are very important for me. Surprised how even a latest display is not vivid. Can someone advise what my options are? Does only U430 suffer from this problem? Are there any calibrations that can fix this to some extent? Are there any lenovo laptops with good display under $600

Did you find a solution? I've got mine rigged to a really old monitor - shamefully the display on that is miles better than the U430 - feels totally washed out!!

Display-Color-Depth

Hi there.
After an application-crash (After Effects) and cold restart my monitor-color-depth suddenly switched from millions of colors to maybe several hundreds of colors. I've tried cleaning the caches, throwing out preferences-files (out of library) and also resetting the color-depth by using third-party-applications. Still not working. I suppose it's some kind of problem in one of the preferences-files in the library, but I don't know which one.
The "About This Mac" section shows that the monitor would show some "Millios Of Colors".
As I can not work like this I made a new user-account. In the new user-account everything runs smoothly but for sure I would like to use my old user-account with all my settings and preferences instead of switching to a total blank one that I have to modify again to fit my needs. Does anyone have an idea what could be wrong or how to succesfully force the display to display millions-of-colors again?
When I log into my old user-account the display first shows normally, then switches to "hundreds-of-colors" after a split-second. Is there any way to slow down this process and monitor which preference-file the computer is loading in exactly this moment?
Also weird: when I connect to my old user account via remote access / screensharing (vnc://...) then the display looks normal from the remote computer.
Any ideas would be welcome. Don't know what else to do...
Cheers, Aeiou

What does it say if you go to About This Mac -> More Info -> Graphics & Displays -> Pixel Depth
1: Try resetting the PRAM.
2: Go to System Preferences -> Displays -> Color -> Select another profile or calibrate
3: Go to System Preferences -> Universal Access -> Slide the Contrast bar all the way to the left
Might end up just being a plist to snag though.

Mystery: XP display color scheme : silver can result in black on black unreadable controls

My setup is a Dell PC running XP Professional. Display Dell 1901 (also does this on Default Display). Intel 82856G Integrated Graphics driver. LabVIEW 7.1.
The color settings for the 5 controls on the attached .vi are foreground: 179 179 179 and background 255 255 255 yet some appear as black on black in the XP display color scheme : silver and some appear as black on white. By setting the XP color scheme to default, you can use the color sample and color fill tools to change whether a control will be black on black or black on white in the color scheme : silver view. It appears like there is some "magic property" that is not foreground or background color that is being copied with the color sample and fill tools.
Any ideas?
Attachments:
silver_contrsch.JPG ‏76 KB
control_scheme_silver.vi ‏15 KB
default_contrsch.JPG ‏79 KB

Hello,
I was a bit puzzled by this myself until someone suggested I use the "color sucker" tool to find out what the current colors of the enums were.
The color sucker tool (aka eye-dropper) can be used by selecting the paintbrush tool and holding CTRL on the keyboard. Now left-click the item you want to check the color of. Right-click any object to bring up the color picker, and look at the colors in the history. The one furthest to the right (that isn't "empty") is the color you just picked up with the color sucker.
You'll notice that on the problematic enums, the background color is "Hilight Text". This is a system color that will change depending on the theme you use. On the silver theme, it is black or near-black. On the others it is white or near-white.
When picking colors, you might want to be careful to watch the text next to the curently selected color box. If it has RGB values, this is safe (theme-independent). It's also safe to use named colors in the "User" list, such as "Control Background". But if the named color is a system color, it can change depending on your theme.
Disclaimer: I don't know if color sucker or eye dropper is the "official" term for this tool.
Message Edited by Jeff B on 05-30-2006 10:54 AM

How do I delete a display color profile?

How do I delete a display color profile? I created several over time when calibrating monitor with a Datacolor Spyder. I have not been able to delete any old profiles because the "Delete Profile" button is grayed out and not responding. I repaired permissions but that didn't help.

Shared Profiles are located in the following folder:
/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/
From the finder menu bar, Go... > Go to Folder > /Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/

Losing Displays Color setting when waking from sleep

Hey y'all!
I haven't seen this specific problem addressed anywhere in the forums - I have a Pismo 500 running 10.3.9. The problem is that when I wake the Pismo from sleep, nine times out of ten, it defaults to the uncalibrated display space. If I open the Prefs pane, the Displays>Color tab shows the correct calibrated profile selected, but the colors and such are way off. If I just click on the selected profile, it goes back to that profile correctly - but that's too many mouse clicks just to see correctly after waking!
The confusing thing is that this problem never shows up during starts/restarts - during the boot process, the Pismo correctly applies the selected profile and the change is noticable (my display is natively WAAAAY too blue/cyan for my tastes and line of work). So it works from a standing start, and from a warm reboot, just not waking from sleep.
The problem didn't manifest until after I moved from 10.2.x to 10.3, but that move solved so many other problems, I'm still happy I did it.
Any thoughts?

Hi,
I do have a work around this problem.
Go to mac hd, to users, to what looks like a house, to library, to colorsync, to profiles. Open profiles and take that profile and put it on the desktop.
Next go to mac hd, to library, to colorsync, to profiles, to displays.
Open displays and place the profile on the desktop in the there.
That solved my problem.
emac Mac OS X (10.3.9) Combodrive, SN G84162YCQJB

Need terminal command for setting display colors ASAP!!!!!

Hello everyone,
I was being dumb and figured, oh what will this do?
I know, I know one of those button pushers...anyway I set the Display colors to 256 on my Xserve, which has no video card in it, and now all I see in Chicken of the VNC is a black screen. Im sure there is a terminal command out there where
I can ssh into the Xserve, and change the colors back, but I can't find it...could someone post it up here or point me in the right direction please?
Thanx in advance!!!!!!!

didn't even think of that...seems to be the most obvious things, seem to be the first to be overlooked.
Will let you know.

Display Colors Out of Whack

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