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Display color calibration

My 2020 iMac Retina 5k display has turned the color Red into Magenta. There is no Red anywhere: in images, on the desktop, even on the dock icons. Other colors are normal, and there are no other signs of a disorder. However, I recently updated to Ventura, though I did not notice the color change immediately.


I still have a 2010 iMac 27", and the colors are normal. I checked the Color Library in Photoshop to compare. It's therefore not an eyesight issue.


I suppose the disorder most likely comes down to a miscalibrated display. I have no idea how it could have miscalibrated itself. I know there is a section in Settings for display adjustments, which I have explored--but I did not find a calibration method other than selecting another profile, none of which made any improvement.


I did not find any search results so far that address precisely this issue. I hope to receive suggestions here on fixing my display color calibration. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and in advance for offering advice!







iMac Line (2012 and Later)

Posted on Dec 26, 2022 9:43 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Dec 27, 2022 2:35 PM

Sounds like, somehow, the Color Filters option got turned on in the System settings and is set to the Red/Green filter for a person with Protanopia vision. Reds do then indeed appear magenta. Effect is faked here on the first image since you can't actually take a screen shot of the color.



Normal (no filter for color blindness):



Check under System Settings > Accessibility.

7 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Dec 27, 2022 2:35 PM in response to oldfashioneddoughnut

Sounds like, somehow, the Color Filters option got turned on in the System settings and is set to the Red/Green filter for a person with Protanopia vision. Reds do then indeed appear magenta. Effect is faked here on the first image since you can't actually take a screen shot of the color.



Normal (no filter for color blindness):



Check under System Settings > Accessibility.

Dec 27, 2022 2:14 PM in response to Meg The Dog

Thank you for your reply. I've tried that several times now.


I got to the Display Calibrator Assistant, and left native white point as is, first, and continued through to the Conclusion. I saw no way to make any adjustments or choices at this point, and clicked the Done button, to return to the Select a target white point to unclick the Native white point.

I moved the slider from all the way left, to all the way right to adjust the white point. Although there is a distinct color temperature adjustment, there is no correction of the red-to-magenta shift. The colors across the spectrum do change somewhat. But there is no actual red, only a bit brighter magenta, and not nearly enough of an adjustment to be useful.


Which leads to the question: what reason could there be for the display to produce false color without me having done anything, other than change the outline color of the cursor, to magenta--other than Ventura, I have made no upgrades.


Dec 27, 2022 8:10 PM in response to Kurt Lang

Yes, Kurt, it's clear now that, inadvertently, I had activated Color Filters when I was changing the color of the mouse pointer from white to magenta. I didn't know there were color filters to correct for eyesight conditions, that might also affect color calibration across the board. Even though it is logical.

There's something ironic about going to Accessibility to adjust only the color of the mouse pointer outline, and notice later on that colors were adjusted globally, from there, and then going to the Displays section but find nothing there to fix it, but something else.

It's very interesting, and useful to see all the other wondrous things to be done in the Accessibility section. I'll make a suggestion: to include Accessibility-Display in a search for "display color calibration" along with Display.


Thanks very much for sharing your knowledge, Kurt. I've got all the bright red I need!



Dec 27, 2022 8:47 PM in response to Old Toad

Thanks for your assistance. I'm over my head in the topic of calibration, and so I assume that they are the equivalent on the 2010 as the 2020 machines. The operating systems have changed a lot meanwhile, however.


I'm running Ventura, which has revamped System Settings (for the better). On the older machine, it's High Sierra, and the color settings routines look, well, gnarly to me by comparison.


Thanks again!

Display color calibration

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