Color problem with OSX 10.4, especially with iPhoto

On Jun 8, 2006, at 5:29 PM, neil wrote:

> I've been having a problem with my G4 Mac running OSX 10.4.6. It
> seemed to start with getting a new main monitor, but the problem is
> consistent on both monitors of a dual CRT monitor system.
> Primarily, colours don't appear as they should - highlight colours
> are completely different to the ones they used to be, selecting
> colours from any colour picker results in completely off choices,
> and photos can appear totally saturated, with one colour missing,
> or almost completely washed out.
>
> iPhoto provides the clearest example of this - all the thumbnails
> appear perfectly for a second, and then jump to a strange over-
> saturated version. Scrolling to the next page gives me normal
> colour, and then distorted a second later. If I double-click the
> thumbnail to open it up, the image then appears as normal.
>
> Images on web pages are split about 50:50 between normal saturation
> and completely oversaturated.
>
> I'm not sure where to start looking for problems - I've tried
> changing the monitor profiles, but that only adjusts the overall
> image, and very slightly. Plus, I can straddle the two monitors
> with the iPhoto window, and see the same colour shifts in both
> screens. Any help or advice would be appreciated


I don't know about iPhoto (I use Photoshop), but from time to time
I've forgotten to move from CMYK to RGB. And if you're using Camera
Raw, there is sometimes difference between a camera's profile and the
Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in's built in profile for the camera model,
and there's a slider tab in Photoshop you can use to compensate for
this - iPhoto might have something like this too.

Did you calibrate your monitor to conform to an International Color
Consortium profile, or just change the profile? I'm not sure if they
are the same thing; what should help is to adjust the color points so
that it conforms to the standard.

http://www.color.org/index.html

Macs have a built in calibration assistant that should do the trick
for working with iPhoto (you can find it via Help).

Adobe also supplies profiles:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?
product=62&platform=Macintosh

There's a lot of excellent information about calibrating screens here:

http://www.normankoren.com/makingfineprints1A.html

To get the best color, it helps to use a professional spectro meter
thingy (I forget exactly what they are called), but they are
expensive. If you know someone who has one, it would be worthwhile to
ask them to help you out in exchange for pizza and beer - it's what I
do.

HTH,

Marilyn

I'm having the same issue with 10.4.6; the color profiles on my main user account are all washed out. If I log out of my user account and into a new account the colors are absolutely fine. I've gone through my user specific preferences and deleted the colorsync folders and I've looked for any other possible candidate files that might also be responsible, but with no luck. Some people have had success with DMProxy (although no one seems to know exactly what it does to fix it) but that hasn't worked either. Anyone have any ideas? I don't really want to have to reinstall.

On 6/27/06 at 8:17 AM, morthosepisto.org (Morthos) wrote:

>I'm having the same issue with 10.4.6; the color profiles on my main
>user account are all washed out. If I log out of my user account and
>into a new account the colors are absolutely fine. I've gone through
>my user specific preferences and deleted the colorsync folders and
>I've looked for any other possible candidate files that might also
>be responsible, but with no luck. Some people have had success with
>DMProxy (although no one seems to know exactly what it does to fix
>it) but that hasn't worked either. Anyone have any ideas? I don't
>really want to have to reinstall.

This isn't something a reinstall will correct. There is a known bug related to fast user switching that causes this that hasn't been fixed yet as of Mac OS 10.4.7. Basically, if you switch accounts via fast user switching, the displays preference panel switches to a generic color profile and will not allow switching back to a correct profile. It is the generic profile that is responsible for the washed out appearance. Logging out and back in corrects the problem.

I don't recall specifically what version of Tiger this first appeared in. But having just upgraded to 10.4.7, I've verified I still see the same behavior I described above. I think I saw some information regarding this on either Mac OS X Hints or the MacFixIt web sites.

On 2006-06-28, at 03:17, Morthos wrote:

> I'm having the same issue with 10.4.6; the color profiles on my
> main user account are all washed out. If I log out of my user
> account and into a new account the colors are absolutely fine.

I don't know if it's the same symptoms, but there was a bug at least
until 10.4.4 where everything would get washed out after a fast user
switch. It goes away after a reboot, and there's other sols too--
macosxhints or a Google should be able to help.

> I'm having the same issue with 10.4.6; the color profiles on my main user
> account are all washed out. If I log out of my user account and into a new
> account the colors are absolutely fine. I've gone through my user specific
> preferences and deleted the colorsync folders and I've looked for any other
> possible candidate files that might also be responsible, but with no luck.
> Some people have had success with DMProxy (although no one seems to know
> exactly what it does to fix it) but that hasn't worked either. Anyone have
> any ideas? I don't really want to have to reinstall.

This is apparently a long-standing bug in 10.4, which I didn't
encounter (or at least notice) till I got my new MacBook. It usually
occurs when I switch users, when suddenly the display seems set to a
very bright, bluish colour profile.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060103162354164

So what I've done is put an alias to DMProxy (specifically, the item
at /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/CoreGraphics.framework/Versions/A/Resources/DMProxy)
in my Applications folder, renaming it "Recalibrate Display."

I have it set as a login item whenever I log into any account, and if
it happens when I switch users that are already logged in, I just run
it from Applications. It's a hack, but it fixes the ColorSync problem
every time. I have no idea why it works. I sure hope Leopard fixes it.
10.4.7 didn't -- I just tested it.

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