MBP 13' M1 External Display (LG 35' HDR) with pale colors (way to bright)

Hi Ronny,

Thanks for your post! It sounds like your LG display doesn't have the same results using your M1 MacBook Pro compared to your older Mac. We'll do our best to help out with this and see if we can get this resolved.

Does this happen after you login or after sleep? If so, check out the following under section, 'Contrast or color issues': Get help with video issues on external displays connected to your Mac

Should it continue to occur, let us know how you have the display connected to these Macs and what cable is needed for the display to work properly with Mac. In System Preferences > Displays > Color > what's the current profile set to exactly?

Hoping this helps out, take care!

I'm having this same issue when my M1 MacBook Pro connects to a LG Ultra external display via USB-C. This happens regardless of login or sleep.

I'm using the exact same color profile (.icc) an older MacBook of mine uses. The older MacBook has no display issues.

One important note: when I look into the LG monitor settings, all the settings are the same when I connect both monitors, except one:

Black Level

When the 2019 MBP is connected —Black Level: High

When the M1 MBP is connected — Black Level: Low

The problem is, I can't switch the setting because it is greyed out.

Please let me know if there is anything I can try — thanks!

Hey,

just get my display (LG 35WN75C-A). Just same error. When I activated the HDR mode in Preferences > Displays, the black color is dark grey.

When I deactivate the mode, the monitor just stays in dark grey colors instead of black. I have to connect the display with an HDMI cable to my USB-C adapter. Than black is black again. When I connect USB-C again, black is black.

So for me it seems that the HDR mode in MacOS has a little problem.

I tried HDMI instead of USB-C and it looked great. But when I went back to USB-C, black went back to grey. I'd rather not switch to HDMI because then I have to buy yet another adapter.

I was able to change Black Mode in the monitor's settings and it made no difference, so that has nothing to do with the issue.

I hope there is an update really soon!

Received my monitor yesterday and wish I’d have done a bit more research before buying now! I’ve tried various settings all to no avail, still grey.

Has anyone found a workaround by using different cables? i.e. Thunderbolt rather than USB3, Thunderbolt to DisplayPort? Really don’t want to go down the HDMI route as will need a (very expensive) Thunderbolt 3 hub to get everything I need connected!

Do you think Apple/LG will correct this soon or is it a return job?!

Update: managed to change Black Effect to High in HDR effect mode when connecting via HDMI. I can then go back to USBC input. This is a huge improvement but the monitor turns that black effect to Low after a reboot and it’s greyed out (cannot be changed) so have to go through the whole process again. Real pain and still deciding wether to keep it or not!

Thanks for that, will give it a try as soon as I can. Also have ordered a genuine Apple Thunderbolt 3 cable, a USB-C to Display Port and a USB-C to HDMI cables. Will try when they turn up Thursday but realise this probably won’t make any difference to the HDR setting on the Mac being resolved.

Amazon returns are a wonderful thing!!!

I've just got one of these too, for my mac mini m1... same issue over usb-c. (seemed ok, on hdmi)

one thing that seems to have helped for me is.

settings -> picture -> game adjust ... turn black stabalizer to zero.

looks pretty good now.... but still not as crisp as my LG 27" IPS,

bit this might be a bit unfair.... the washed out look, also kind of set it up for a fail.

perhaps now, thats fixed... I'll get used to it, certainly its a really nice size monitor, once I stop 'pixel peeking' it, it may turn out to be absolutely fine.

the issue with the 4k IPS monitors is they are all 2140 (?) vertical resolution, which is a bit too small for text, so Ive ended up scaling it down. (1640?) ... hence going for this monitor with 1440 native res but wide.

now the colour issue seems fixed, Im hoping it will end up as a good compromise (considering budget)

Just a quick update, trying different cables (Apples Thunderbolt 3 to Thunderbolt 3, USBC to Display Port and USBC to HDMI) made no difference. Hopefully an OS or LG driver update will resolve the HDR issue soon!?

Not really. I have the same setup over USB-C.

After update to macOS 11.2.1 HDR is turned off by default when I close the lid.

So colors do work, but without the HDR (which is automatically turned off by system).

Yeah, nice "fix" Apple

Yep, exactly the same for me. Selecting HDR makes the screen go washed out white still and when I close the lid it automatically turns it off. So I’m guessing the OS “knows” there’s a problem otherwise it would leave it on and would require you to deselect it manually...

I had same issue - tried .icc profiles from old macbook without any results (old mac with perfect colors, new one bleached). Strangely enough resetting LG monitor to factory settings fixed the issue.

I've reseted my monitor (Picture Reset — Do you want to reset your picture settings?) an there was no difference. Would this be resetting to factory settings, or am I missing more?