My MacBook Air screen colors and clarity changed

You could try & see if the processes described in the Support article

concerning System Management Controller (reset) may resolve this.

•Intel-based Macs: Resetting System Management Controller (SMC)

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3964

Some display settings may be affected by a NVRAM or PRAM...

•About NVRAM and PRAM:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1379

Is the screen displaying what appears to be a negative image?

Instead of black on white, is it different? If so, the Universal

Access> System Preferences may have changed. A keyboard

shortcut could have accidentally changed those settings.

Good luck & happy computing! 🙂

Do you have an external display and adapter, to test the graphics processor in the MacBook Air?

If you reset the SMC according to instructions, after checking the other things you could try first, and followed the instructions for MacBook Air (without removable battery) and restarted the computer, there should have been some changes.

If you reset the NVRAM/PRAM, you may have had to check settings afterward...

the toggle where further reset instructions there say how to do it.

When you checked System Preferences> Universal Access> was the 'Black on White' text setting check marked as the default? This can also affect colors and make odd effects. In fact, all these Universal preferences can.

Have you tried a startup in SafeBoot Mode, hold shift-key down on startup, login, then continue holding shift key down until you see the Finder desktop? Then choose Go in finder menu, look for Utilities (folder) in dropdown menu, then look for Disk Utility in that folder. Launch Disk Utility> repair disk permissions> on your Macintosh HD. When done, check that you restart the computer normally so it won't be in SafeBoot anymore.

This may check and repair some files in the OS X, but not affect any defects in hardware. You may have an Apple Hardware Test in a recovery partiton in the MacBook Air's hard drive, if so that could help diagnose this matter. And if you are in the vicinity of an Apple Store (US and Canada) where they have a Genius bar, call ahead for an appointment to have a Genius or tech person run a diagnostic on the computer. This service is said to be free; while any suggested repairs or estimates would not be included, you'd get that information.

So, 'I followed the steps' doesn't tell me much.

when there were several processes involved..! 🙂

Thought perhaps the Universal Access settings may have been the ticket.

In households with tiny tots, they seem to find all those things very quickly.

And in other instances where one is keyboarding in a hurry or sleepy, the

options for odd effects are more likely to be engaged or experienced.

However in some cases, odd issues can be flushed out of the system

through some reset or other efforts. A few are wide-ranging in result.

Glad you were able to fix it. 🙂