MacOS Catalina and connected monitor brightness changes with Final Cut Pro X

Question

MacOS Catalina and connected monitor brightness changes with Final Cut Pro X

Hi all,

I've been editing on Final Cut Pro X for years with an external monitor connected to my MacBook Pro. No problems. When I updated my MacBook Pro to MacOS Catalina my monitor does something weird with the brightness settings while editing in Final Cut. It automatically adjusts the brightness of the monitor, which results in dimming the brightness and then dialing the brightness up again. It seems to does so whenever I view different shots (that's kinda the whole point in editing that you're viewing shots, right). This totally messes up my focus on editing and I can't do color correction on that external monitor: I have no reference whatsoever. Before updating to Catalina I never had this problem.

To be totally clear: this does not happen on the MacBook Pro monitor, but to the externally connected LG 32UD99-W - 4K IPS HDR Monitor I have been using for over a year now.

Does anybody else have this problem? And more importantly, have a solution to this bug?

I've tried adjusting the monitor settings: turning high dynamic range off, scaling, color profiles. Also deselecting the automatic video card selection of the MBPro. Installed an app called MonitorControl to adjust the brightness of the external monitor. Nothing seems to work.

Many thanks in advance for your help!

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 10.14

Posted on Jul 2, 2020 5:52 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

MoonJ.

Community Specialist

Jul 7, 2020 6:11 AM in response to christiaanchris

Hi christiaanchris,

Thank you for the post. It sounds like you're having some issues with brightness on an external monitor while using Final Cut Pro X. We'd like to see if we can assist.

To clarify, this only happens when using Final Cut Pro X, and only on the external monitor, correct?

When you were reviewing settings, did you double-check System Preferences > Displays to ensure that "Automatically adjust brightness" is turned off?

Does your monitor have any type of built-in automatic brightness setting?

Depending on the above, you might want to test this in a newly-created administrator account. This will help you determine if you have a system-wide issue, or if it is user-specific: How to test an issue in another user account on your Mac

Let us know how it goes. Have a good day.

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Answer 2

Aug 20, 2020 7:21 AM in response to MoonJ.

Thank you for your reply. I checked the monitor settings in MacOS over and over again, same goes for the numerous settings I can adjust in the menu of the monitor itself. I thought it was an issue that was linked to using Final Cut Pro X, but it turns out to be that it also occurred while using other programs, just not that clearly.

The solution turns out to be a setting in the monitor itself, which I had overlooked many times. The LG 32UD99-W - 4K IPS HDR Monitor has a setting called "Smart Energy Saving" which you can turn on high, low and off. Before updating to MacOS Catalina the monitor had a custom setting, but after the update these settings were gone. Still don't know why actually.

So, with MacOS Catalina I had to adjust the monitor to my personal preferences and manually turn off the Smart Energy Saver, which caused the problem that the brightness of my screen was constantly dimming.

I hope this post is helpful to others who may have the same problems! Many thanks to MoonJ. the community specialist!

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MacOS Catalina and connected monitor brightness changes with Final Cut Pro X

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