Snow Leopard - Colors dull faded and washed out.

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Level 1

18 points

Snow Leopard - Colors dull faded and washed out.

I upgraded my Mac Pro with the Nvidia 8800 card to Snow Leopard. I have a 30" wide gamut LCD monitor that always displayed everything with beautiful snappy contrasty bright colors. The first thing I noticed when I upgraded was that the dock icons were all dull and faded. I tried recalibrating the monitor with my Eye-One but this changed nothing. Interestingly when I use Screen Sharing and bring my (non-snow) Leopard running iMac up on the Mac Pro's screen, those colors and icons are bright and contrasty as I remember them, even though I'm looking at them in a window on my upgraded machine. I tried going back to a 1.8 gamma but that made the colors worse (as expected). I do a lot of photo work with Aperture on this machine and I'm very upset about this color change.

Any ideas?

-Josh

Mac Pro 2.8 GHz 8 core, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Sep 4, 2009 5:51 AM

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Answer 1

Joshua Wein1 Author

Level 1

18 points

Sep 4, 2009 8:44 AM in response to Joshua Wein1

Also when I open screen sharing and look at the Mac Pro (with the update and troubles) using my iMac the colors on the Mac Pro virtual screen remain washed out while the local iMac has the bright contrasty colors.

What Gives?

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Answer 2

Joshua Wein1 Author

Level 1

18 points

Sep 4, 2009 6:08 PM in response to Joshua Wein1

Here is an example of what the difference is between the docks of leopard (top) and snow leopard (bottom). The top is the way it was and the bottom is what it has become.

http://homepage.mac.com/jayelwin/ebay/dock.jpg

-josh

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Answer 3

Sep 4, 2009 7:38 PM in response to Joshua Wein1

Snow Leopard changes the default gamma from 1.8 (leopard and older mac) to 2.2 (everyone else). The thought was that this would increase the contrast and give Snow Leopard macs more "punch." It may have worked in the opposite direction for you, however.

I would try going to the System Preferences, Display Preferences, Color Tab, then hit Calibrate. You can turn on Expert Mode and calibrate a new profile this way to get it closer to what you remember/prefer.

Good luck!

Message was edited by: Yaser Herrera

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Answer 4

Joshua Wein1 Author

Level 1

18 points

Sep 5, 2009 4:42 PM in response to Yaser Herrera

I think I've come to the conclusion that the system's colors are all faded but they are probably more "accurate" now. They were definitely very saturated before but it's what I've become used to so now the change is noticed. Photos seem accurate. I think I read somewhere that the system was never ColorSync managed before - only programs running on it. Now it seems that ColorSync has infiltrated everywhere including the system colors and the Dock. I just need to get used to it.

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Answer 5

Sep 7, 2009 9:09 AM in response to Joshua Wein1

Joshua, thanks for posting that picture of the Dock icons. I am experiencing the same thing - my monitor appears "washed out", even after calibrating using Moncaco OptixPro. When I connected a firewire drive, the default drive icon now appears washy and yellow instead of yellow/orange like in Leopard 10.5.

I'm finding myself squinting a lot with Snow Leopard and I'm very dissappointed in the new gamma / color.

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Answer 6

Joshua Wein1 Author

Level 1

18 points

Sep 8, 2009 5:15 PM in response to shawnotay

I have the same issue. But carefully looking at photos on Aperture I realize that they are just fine. It's the system graphics and icons that are dull. Even the little red, yellow, and green buttons on the upper left corner are not as bright. But I believe that where colors count they are accurate. Yes my external drive icons are not as bright an orange (more a yellow now) but they are probably more accurate as to how a graphic designer would have made them. We have just become used to the over saturated "erroneous" colors you get from having a higher gamut monitor and no profile control of the system graphics. I think the system itself is now ColorSync managed. Would love to hear from someone in the know.

-Josh

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Answer 7

Sep 11, 2009 6:25 AM in response to Joshua Wein1

I am not sure if my issue is the same, but all of my colors are washed out when I first boot the Mac. To correct the issue, I connect and disconnect my external monitor. Then the colors look correct.

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Answer 8

Sep 11, 2009 6:33 AM in response to Joshua Wein1

Your bottom row looks just like mine. I hadn't thought of the colors as being washed out until you gave the comparison. My photos look good. So, I'm good with the different look. The old look probably was too saturated.

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Answer 9

a brody

Level 10

85,314 points

Sep 11, 2009 6:48 AM in response to Joshua Wein1

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2130615&tstart=50
is a thread covering this issue.

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Answer 10

Gary P

Level 4

1,418 points

Sep 12, 2009 11:11 PM in response to Joshua Wein1

I have the same problem on my Mac Pro. I upgraded 2 machines, a 2007 MacBook Pro 2.33 GHz, and an early 2008 Mac Pro octo 2.8 GHz with Apple 30 inch Cinema Display. I use the Eye1 Display2 hardware calibrator, and have been calibrating to Gamma 2.2 for years as recommended in the Adobe Photoshop Mac Forum. The MacBook Pro has no issues with display profiles, and looks the same as before. The Mac Pro, however, was a different story. As soon as I upgraded, the display just looked wrong to me. The screen lacked contrast and looked quite soft, almost blurry. I immediately booted back into a clone of my old Leopard installation to check, and sure enough, there was that punchy contrast & solid color I'd grown accustomed to. The comparison was run using the same profile on the same hardware. Only difference was Snow Leopard.

I am pretty sure that Apple did not change the GUI in Snow Leopard, especially because my MacBook Pro looks exactly the same as before. I think it is an OS bug with certain displays. Also, the fix you mention has no effect on my Mac Pro. Not only that, but I can't create a satisfactory display profile for that display in Snow Leopard, and the very same profile that worked great before the upgrade looks washed out in Snow Leopard.

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Answer 11

Sep 13, 2009 4:37 AM in response to Gary P

Do you have an external display that you can plug in and then unplug? That is the only way I can get rid of the issue on my system.

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Answer 12

Gary P

Level 4

1,418 points

Sep 13, 2009 11:38 AM in response to tomrossi7

Yes. I had not thought of trying this. Do you have to do it every time you start the computer?

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Answer 13

Sep 13, 2009 11:46 AM in response to Gary P

Yep. I try not shut it down and just put it to sleep. I actually have this problem on two MacBooks. One with leopard an one with snow leopard.

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Answer 14

Gary P

Level 4

1,418 points

Sep 14, 2009 1:27 PM in response to tomrossi7

If you haven't already done so, please report your issue and workaround to Apple Mac OS X Feedback:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

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Answer 15

FP10101

Level 1

0 points

Sep 14, 2009 11:43 PM in response to tomrossi7

Tomrossi-

Did you ever figure out your issue? I have something similar. When I first boot, I get an error from my eye-one calibration puck software saying no monitor profile can be found, and my monitor is extremely high contrast. But I have found - dont ask - that if i unplug my monitors from the mac, and plug them back in... the monitors redetect themselves, and the colors are perfect.

This is tremendously annoying, because I need to do this every time i reboot.

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