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User profile for user: herebecauseimsad
herebecauseimsad Author
User level: Level 1
6 points

M1 Macbook Pro with external monitor: suddenly colors, esp blacks, are washed out and awful on monitor

Problem: I am using a new 13" Macbook Pro M1 laptop with an external monitor (Asus Proart PA248Q), connected with HDMI using a hub on the mac end because the mac only has USB C ports. When I first connected these two a few weeks ago in early October 2021, they worked fine together. I used my Datacolor SpyderX Pro to calibrate the monitor using the most up-to-date software for that device, and everything worked fine with that, as well. Somewhere in the last few weeks I updated my MacBook Big Sur OS to 11.6 and at that time I did not encounter any issues. I am a photographer and in the last week I have had a lot of editing work to do. Last week I ran another calibration with the Spyder, and everything looked fine until a day or two later, when the monitor suddenly looked washed out and awful. Dark colors display too light and look hazy. I tried re-running calibration software and it looked worse, if anything. I reverted Monitor back to original settings and re-ran, still bad. I turned off all "auto" functions in the macbook's display preferences. I noticed that somewhere along the way the colorsync utility had opened without my prompting it. Ran verification and it listed all of my user created profiles as damaged along with 5 Photoshop profiles. Ran repair and it said it repaired mine but not photoshop profiles, but my profiles still looked awful on the monitor. NOTE: It's not just my user-created profiles that look bad, it's all profiles. Mine just look worse. I tried using a display port to usb c cord instead of hdmi, it made no difference. Of course I tried rebooting, unplugging and reconnecting these devices several times, to no avail. In order to try to figure out where the problem is, I hooked up my old macbook (2015, running mojave) to the monitor and it looks FINE. I ran a Spyder calibration on the monitor with that computer hooked up to it and it worked FINE and looks normal. It does not seem to be an issue with photoshop because it looks bad whether in photoshop or not. THE PROBLEM REALLY SEEMS TO LIE WITH THE M1 MACBOOK. Possibly with the most recent update? My computer does not give me the option to turn off HDR option in the Display Pref, it appears that Apple did away with that option because of this issue arising for others previously (I have scoured the web trying to find a solution to this). Here's something even more weird. When I turned both on this morning, it appeared for a few minutes that the display settings were working normally, BUT THEY CHANGED WITHIN A FEW MINUTES, back to looking washed out and crappy. Hooked it up to the old mac again to test and again, it looks fine--so it isn't the monitor or the calibration software.


I can't use this setup to edit photos for clients. It is very frustrating, because it DID work fine for the first few weeks and I've gone to a lot of bother and expense to set it all up. I will have to return the macbook if I can't resolve it, because it's useless to me if I can't use it with an external monitor to do my work. Please help! NOTE: I have wasted a day and a half on this problem and am now way behind on my editing work, so I will be dumping the new set up and using my old mac to do this work for this week. I will likely not return to this board until I have gotten caught up.

Posted on Oct 19, 2021 9:19 AM

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User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
132,775 points

Oct 19, 2021 9:37 AM in response to herebecauseimsad

that Mac features:

a high-resolution LED-backlit 13.3" widescreen 2560x1600 (227 ppi, 500 nits) "Retina" display with True Tone technology

from:

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-m1-8-core-13-2020-specs.html 


That means when the sunlight hits the TrueTone sensor, the colors on ALL the displays may be adjusted automatically.


Use True Tone on your Mac - Apple Support


.

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User profile for user: herebecauseimsad
herebecauseimsad Author
User level: Level 1
6 points

Oct 20, 2021 5:16 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Not the solution AT ALL. I have tried both having the True Tone option toggled on and off. This does not work to solve the problem. This answer doesn’t address any of these factors:

-why did my calibration system work I initially but not after updating my m1 mb to 11.6?

-why does ColorSync utility turn itself on and try to “fix” my profiles?

-why does it work using my old intel mb but not this one?

The True Tone option may make the monitor look okay but is not satisfactory for editing images with print being the final outcome. My calibration software works great for this, but not with this Mac. Someone who has experience with photo editing…help?!

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User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
132,775 points

Oct 20, 2021 8:37 AM in response to herebecauseimsad

Safe Mode does a number of different things. Hold shift at startup, but have your userid and password at the ready.


A parade of unusual things happens.


• Your Mac loads just enough of the kernel to do a disk check. Then it proceeds to do a disk check. This can take an extra about five minutes.

• Your Mac adds ONLY a minimal set of Apple-Only extensions, Not including graphics acceleration extensions. Screen updates will therefore be wonky and slow, and the screen may re-draw multiple times, but it ultimately should be accurate.

• your userid and password are required, even if you normally auto-login. So have them handy.

• Your Mac assumes defaults for as many settings as possible. This is the key for re-setting the screen, but there is a little more to it: Resolution is likely to be lower and settings ordinary. Use this as a starting point to customize settings to your liking.

Any changes you make in Safe Mode will "stick" in regular mode after you restart.

• after restart in normal mode, your Mac sill take slightly longer to start up [once] because it rebuilds some system caches.


"Works in Safe mode, fails in regular mode" implies "It's something you added".

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User profile for user: herebecauseimsad
herebecauseimsad Author
User level: Level 1
6 points

Oct 20, 2021 8:49 AM in response to Soaring-Eagle

So, it looks okay on the actual device/laptop screen, it looks bad on the external monitor screen. And, oddly, that’s new—it HAS worked previously. Would GPU come into play with an external monitor? Also, of note, if I reset the monitor to out of box settings and use it’s default icc profile, it looks okay. But editing photos with that profile doesn’t work—they don’t look good when they leave that color space.

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User profile for user: Grant Bennet-Alder
Grant Bennet-Alder
User level: Level 10
132,775 points

Oct 20, 2021 8:57 AM in response to herebecauseimsad

<< Would GPU come into play with an external monitor? >>


In almost all 13-in models, there is only the Integrated GPU, and it is used for everything. So no difference when connecting an external display.


On almost all 15-in models, the Discrete GPU is pressed into service for ALL displays when you connect any External display. There are no pathways from Integrated GPU to External displays.


In Safe Mode, graphics acceleration extensions are not loaded, so the CPU does all the complex drawing.

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M1 Macbook Pro with external monitor: suddenly colors, esp blacks, are washed out and awful on monitor

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