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Bright HDR Colors after 10.15.4 Catalina Update

Hey. I've got a 2019 16" Macbook Pro and a LG 27UK650 4K 10-bit HDR monitor connected. Last night, I updated my Mac to 10.15.4. Before that, I was unable to view anything in HDR. My monitor looked good, so I never complained. Then, this morning I woke up and went to log in, when my monitor turned on, I saw a HDR logo appear at the top right of my screen (the on-screen overlay from my LG monitor). Now, in settings of the monitor OSD itself, the ONLY control I have is Brightness. Everything else is greyed out. The screen is now very blue and all the colors are extremely vivid. It almost appears as if the monitor is 'broke'.


If I look in System Preferences > Display, it shows a new High Dynamic Range check box. It is checked. If I uncheck it, the display goes back to how it was before. I've tried color calibration to see if I could tone down the colors, but it only seems to allow me to change the white point of the monitor itself.


I've went to the LG website to see if there's a particular calibration file for this monitor and can only find Windows based calibration settings.


Can anyone please help point me in the right direction of how to properly get HDR to appear on this monitor? I much prefer the color of HDR disabled, but after seeing how well HDR brightens up shadows, I'd really like to get HDR working properly. I've attached two photos I took, one with HDR off showing normal colors but dark shadows and one with HDR on showing the bright neon colors with the blue tint. I hope this helps?


MacBook Pro with Touch Bar

Posted on Mar 27, 2020 7:21 AM

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Posted on Nov 19, 2020 10:40 PM

I've been having this same issue on my LG 27UL600.


The only way I can reliably get the colors to look normal is to follow the following procedure. Note, this will need to be followed each time the mac wakes up or the monitor is plugged in.


  1. Go to System Preferences > Displays > Display and make sure HDR checkbox is checked.
  2. Select the Color tab. You should see one or more LG HDR 4K color profiles. Delete them.
  3. The color profile should revert to a conventional color space like like sRGB IEC61966-2.1
  4. Go back to the Display tab and uncheck the HDR checkbox.


I've noticed that some people say that clicking the HDR button on and off should also achieve the same result. This worked for me occasionally but the number of times I had to switch it on and off varied... a lot.



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Nov 19, 2020 10:40 PM in response to jo3see

I've been having this same issue on my LG 27UL600.


The only way I can reliably get the colors to look normal is to follow the following procedure. Note, this will need to be followed each time the mac wakes up or the monitor is plugged in.


  1. Go to System Preferences > Displays > Display and make sure HDR checkbox is checked.
  2. Select the Color tab. You should see one or more LG HDR 4K color profiles. Delete them.
  3. The color profile should revert to a conventional color space like like sRGB IEC61966-2.1
  4. Go back to the Display tab and uncheck the HDR checkbox.


I've noticed that some people say that clicking the HDR button on and off should also achieve the same result. This worked for me occasionally but the number of times I had to switch it on and off varied... a lot.



Apr 1, 2020 8:54 AM in response to jo3see

I had the same issue of color being completely broken upon my upgrade to Catalina. Then I found the HDR checkbox.

By toggling the HDR checkbox, I've been able to get my LG back into SDR mode and looking as it used to. The problem is, when my laptop goes to sleep, the color looks broken again when I wake it up. Toggling the HDR checkbox sometimes resolves the issue. Other times it doesn't.

Being able to actually run the monitor in HDR mode would probably be ideal but it looks terrible currently, so SDR is preferred.


Anyway, it's obviously a bug in the way the OS is dealing with SDR/HDR.

Apr 1, 2020 9:09 AM in response to Evan Jacobs

I agree that this is a bug. My primary post was to see if anyone had a fix for the neon type coloring that's present when HDR is enabled. I did list in the primary post that I had unchecked the HDR option and the display went back to normal, but I liked how HDR brings out more definition in darker shadows, and was hoping someone could help tone down the color a bit.


The solution I've found after all this is to go into color calibration and just create a calibrated setting with less color, but then it's more dull colors with the neon effect. It's suitable to use for now.


Hoping someone can explain why HDR is enabled for the entire desktop and not just video. That would be a perfect solution.

Jun 5, 2020 10:30 AM in response to RWBMac

I've been tweaking my LG 4K 27" over and over since the upgrade. This is a problem. I can get a passable color match (barely) between the monitor controls and the calibration (expert mode) but any video instantly looks like posterized garbage. Was fine before. Flawless. Am patiently waiting for Apple to fix this.


Grabbed a snap (iMac photo a little blurry but still illustrates the problem).


Mar 27, 2020 11:48 AM in response to jo3see

Sorry- this probably doesn't help, but I've been having the same problem. After the update that boolean was checked (I have no idea if it existed or was checked before) and the color on the monitor was way off in the way you described. I was just relieved to be able to get the monitor back in a state where the colors weren't off and burning out my eyes.

Mar 29, 2020 6:04 PM in response to mluker78

Actually now that you mention it, some colors are crazy bright. I just went to Amazon and some of the yellow and orange colors almost look like highlighters. This book that was featured on the home page is practically neon:


https://www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-Kids-1-year-auto-renewal/dp/B002PXW1R0


However the white on the page is really dull and washed out with a blue tint.

Apr 9, 2020 11:35 AM in response to BruceQian

Can you please explain to me what you’re referring to by “closing” your monitor?


Power cycling the monitor during macOS running and then plugging it back in did not work for me.


The whole purpose of me starting this thread wasn’t to figure out how to get back to how it was before the update, but to figure out how to properly view my desktop with correct colors when HDR mode is enabled.


I think what it comes down to is having macOS give people the ability to have it disabled for your desktop and only enable it for a window playing video, or if it’s full screen. Until then, I don’t think we’re going to get more of a “just disable it” set of instructions here.

Apr 14, 2020 1:12 PM in response to jo3see

I use "Display Menu" in order to run this monitor at the native 5120x2160 resolution without any scaling. With the 10.15.4 update, I can no longer run at 5120x2160 over Thunderbolt 3 - I have to use a USB-C to Mini DisplayPort adapter, and then it works.


Hoping they fix that, the HDR modes in the monitor have terrible color and I can't seem to calibrate around that.

Apr 28, 2020 11:56 PM in response to jo3see

Hi All,


Im connecting to an LG UK-850W from my 2018 15' Macbook Pro and I'm running into these issues. By the same token, my new 2020 iPad Pro has the same issue. I don't need to explain that iPad OS/iOS has significantly less settings and configurations than Mac OS, but it looks like both platforms are running into the issue. Apple any update on patch or fix would be appreciated! We know how nuts things are right now.

May 4, 2020 5:38 AM in response to jo3see

I have the same problem with my LG 27UK850. Un-clicking the HDR box helped a lot (thank you for that). I'd also like to know how to use HDR. When checked, the colors are neon with too much blue and most of the settings on the monitor are grayed out (contrast is also set to 100).


Restarting and unplugging and replugging monitor, etc. does not make a difference. Problem started happening once I updated to 10.15.4. Perhaps LG will issue a new driver update?



Bright HDR Colors after 10.15.4 Catalina Update

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