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Colour on a MacBook Air

Avatar Alan Cox
I have had my MacBook Air a little while but only started using it for photo recently. Sadly, the colour rendering is atrocious and unacceptable. Difficult to describe but the colours are harsh and the photos look as though i have been sharpening them ++. I have no idea how to correct this and wonder if it is something that someone who knows about these things would help me with if I brought the machine to the next Bournemouth meeting?

In the 'good old days' we used to invite folks to bring along their machines for advice but don't seem to offer this any more. Should we?

Alan Cox

Re: Colour on a MacBook Air

Avatar Mick Burrell
try going to System Preferences>Displays>Color and click Calibrate. Follow the steps there to see if it improves.

Re: Colour on a MacBook Air

Avatar Alan Cox
I tried it and it didn't help at all unfortunately. Admittedly, I used the 'standards' recommend at each step but I don't have the least idea what all that mumbo jumbo means in relation to colour rendering.

Re: Colour on a MacBook Air

Avatar Alan Cox
An addendum probably of no significance. On the ceiling above me are two fluorescent tubes with bright while light. But their reflection on my screen shows both as a rather pleasant pink! Now there's another conundrum for someone to get his teeth into!

Re: Colour on a MacBook Air

Avatar Derek Wright
Beg borrow or steal a Screen Colour Calibrator, a control program will have to be installed which will drive the screen to out put certain colour values and brightnesses, these are measured by the Calibration device that sits on the screen measuring the output values. At the end of the process a new colour profile will be generated and inserted into the Display Colour Preferences section.

Re: Colour on a MacBook Air

Avatar Euan Williams
Hi Alan,
I know how colour on computers can be a morass of conflicting propositions, so this is a very quick attempt to offer a non-destructive solution for you until the AGM meeting (bring your Mac).

It is always possible that there is something wrong with your display which would be covered by warranty, but generally this is not likely (I haven't seen your screen).

At the bottom of this post you will find links to Rob Griffith's (free) eBook from which you can gain a whole load of useful knowledge to dissipate that depressing mumbo-jumbo feeling. Anyway, "mumbo-jumbo" does feel a teensy bit colonial era...

Download and read the eBook, bit by bit, as the issues come into focus. It's very well written and covers the ground in an agreeable way. Highly recommended for non-geeks :)

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Note that the colour of your lighting, direct or indirect, sunny or dark and cloudy day, all affect your calibration, so try to find as neutral as possible a light (midday on a scattered clouds day in early September with no artificial light, avoiding reflections, and strongly coloured wallpaper (light bounces -- in a manner of speaking). Needless to say, if you always wear fashion sun glasses and look at your screen through them your calibration should be done with them on, some people are a bit weird that way and the calibration will be too.

If you want to see what your screen looks like to a colour blind person, use "Colour Oracle" (free) which, when open, sits in your top menu bar ready for use:
> http://colororacle.org/index.html <

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Calibration (restart your Mac, and make sure none of your personal auto-start applications are running). We are going to use "Expert Mode" it's easier :)

1. in the System Preference for Displays go to Colour

2. make sure the check box for "profiles for this display only" is ticked, and select the first LCD calibration in the list. This should be the factory set calibration and for a reasonably new Mac should be pretty good -- your problem may be that something or someone (helpful teenager?) has de-selected that first option.

3. click on "calibrate"

4. This is the "Display Calibrator" app, and you will see small blue 'buttons which slide up and down (and) left and right

5. in the centre is the standard Apple symbol in a square of lines, and your aim should be to make the Apple as 'invisible' as possible. It helps enormously to look at the square from the side of your eye where the image blends better. Other adjustments in the same general format follow to achieve the right brightness-colour-contrast mix

6. Your target gamma should be "Standard" (2.2) and your Target white point will probably be D65 (check "use native white point")

7. You will be quite safe messing about with this to your heart's content, since even if you save your calibration the original factory setting (first on the list) won't be overwritten. When saving use a short title that says e.g. "Alan calibration 10-sept-13 summer daylight"

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You are right to note that calibration alters when working under fluorescent (blue) light or old-fashioned tungsten (yellow) light etc. In the no-expense-spared world of professional colour correction the lighting is standardised and monitors are shaded from direct light. Want to pay £2,500 for your Eizo display?

Colour test "spiders" (colorimeters that read the output from your screen) are available, expensive, and have their own software to correct your screen's output, -- would probably not be loaned out -- and aren't really necessary for most users.

Apple's "ColorSynch Utility" contains Help files which can help you to learn a lot about colour calibration and other related issues, but you should NOT use this to calibrate your monitor unless you know exactly what you are doing

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For more information sensibly presented about colour equipment go to
> http://www.nativedigital.com/ <

and look for the (free) eBook or go to:
> http://www.colourcollective.co.uk/dzyt652t/Practical_Colour_Management.pdf <

Re: Colour on a MacBook Air

Avatar Roy Rainford
Another variable when imaging on a MacBook/ Laptop is the angle of the screen. It needs assessment of the optimum position (without reflections) and then returning to this position every time imaging is being done. Consistent lighting is also important. However it seems you have a more serious problem Alan and I would certainly caibrate for starters. Roy

Re: Colour on a MacBook Air

Avatar Alan Cox
I must start by coupling my grateful thanks to all who gave advice with a profuse apology. This is because my problem was all my fault.

Roy who gave such detailed and helpful adviceon the Discussion page also emailed me and suggested I send him a couple of my rather grotesque images for him to look at. Lo and behold, he emailed me back to say that the images looked just fine on his machine thus narrowing the problem to something wrong on my MacBook Air.

I had already fiddled but did some more fiddling and chanced on System Preferences > Accessibility where I found that the Contrast slider was set to near Maximum. So I slid it to the other end labelled Normal and that was that. Joy of joys, everything was back to normal.

I vaguely recall checking Accessibility some time ago but don't recall any detail but that must have been when I caused myself and many kind WAGs advisers so much trouble.

Sorry folks and thanks for the companionship – one of many important things about WAGs.

Alan

Re: Colour on a MacBook Air

Avatar Derek Wright
Actually - if WAMUG is looking for a new toy for the members to use - a screen colour calibration tool might be a useful purchase.....

Re: Colour on a MacBook Air

Avatar Lionel Ogden
A good idea, but how would we get round the software issue?

Re: Colour on a MacBook Air

Avatar Derek Wright
Good point - reading the T&Cs on my Spyder Pro documentation it is a bit limiting - however it might be worth writing to one of companies to see if we could buy a flexible license, after all the simultaneus use of the software is limited by the number of devices which would be one.
 
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