Gradient Display Problems

It says here on
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/specs.html:

Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the
built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an
external display, both at millions of colors.


Now, how can Apple back that up?

MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8)

That's for external displays, not the actual mbp display....and millions doesn't mean 16.7 million, it just means 'millions'. there is something fishy going on here.

"support for millions of colors"

Maybe that's the little clause that helps Apple get out of any 'false advertising' issues. As the screen does have support for "showing" milllions of colours, I'm assuming it's the dithering that's applied that does the 'support'.

But still Apple's marketing have been really sneaky about it. I honestly thought I was getting a better screen with the MacBook Pro. 😟

I was just in Parallels, and viewed the red gradient graphic in Internet Explorer 7. There's no weird block of red on the left side. There's some banding, but otherwise a fairly perfect gradient. Unlike the bold red column you get in Safari or Preview.

The strange thing is, the other two multi colour gradient pics from the macrumors forum:

http://home.freeuk.com/jackdodds/banding/grangerMBP_C2Dtest.jpg
and
http://home.freeuk.com/jackdodds/banding/gammutMBP_C2Dtest.jpg
.
these look exactly the same in IE7 in Windows, or Safari in MacOSX. What's going on???

Anyone got more gradients to test with?

I take back what I said about Preview, the red block is not there O_o
But it is there in Safari, and no matter what colour profile I change to it's still there in Safari.

Out of curiousity, does having a colour profile tagged to an image change any of this??

Out of curiousity, does having a colour profile
tagged to an image change any of this??

It should only have an effect with apps that read the tags. (Like Safari, though I don't think Firefox does). I haven't had time to look at/think about this issue too much, but I suspect that programs that are not using profiles are producing fewer problems with gradients, perhaps the default screen profile is to blame for the severe banding on the red gradient? I may try to look into this some more, but I'm trying to sort out too many things at the moment.

Might try calibrating the MBP screen today though...

Happy Christmas everybody.

I received a huey (colour calibrator) for Christmas and I used it to create a new profile... it's not perfect but it's waaaay better than the apple supplied profile. overall you will notice less banding and the brushed metal finder is more neutral gray rather than warm.

you can download the profile here...
http://pixelpusher.ca/MBP_better+profile.zip

Cheers,
Andrew

wow thanks so much Andrew hug
Happy New Year! =)

oops, on my screen the brushed metal is even warmer, (red rather than yellow).
I was so excited, I guess we'll each have to calibrate our screens, thanks anyway 😟

Man, this is the pits... My new MacBook does all the naughtiness described in this thread...

A insightful friend told me some time ago that he has noticed Apple really starting to abandon the professional graphics community. Apple seems heavily concentrating on the home users(the people buying iPods)--have you noticed that their computer model lineup focuses on iMacs and MiniMacs and MacBooks and they virtually have abandoned desktop models...?

It really saddens me that they would do this when for so long they stood for graphics excellence. I no longer work in graphics per say, but I still use Photoshop occasionally, and continue my long love affair with the Mac, but this sort of behavior is so indicative of what you would expect out of Redmond, Washington--NOT Cupertino, California...!

That profile may be no good for any other display than yours. Each profile has been created FROM the original characteristics of the display the Huey is attached to, and no two displays are the same. I have two MBP C2Ds and I cannot interchange their Huey produced profiles. They look OK If I do that, but not for photographic purposes. One of the displays is very close to neutral to begin with and the other is WAY OFF, so it needs lots of adjustment and its profile is useless on the other one and vice versa.

Took my new MBP C2D 2.33/2G/120G with the banding problem to the Apple store after Apple Care set up an appointment for me at the SF Apple Store. Went in and they checked it out. The first guy was mean and if I had been anyone I would have had him fired, he would stomp off to go check something then come back and basicaly say 'What do you want me to do? I didn't make these." Luckily, I kept my cool (barely) and he got me to a Media Genius (do not recall his name). He saw the banding too, and on all the 15" in the store too! Then he calls his boss over, Tim Cherven, Manager per his card. Nice enough, he sees the bands and says how can I be made happy. I say, sell me what you advertised and I bought - a Macbook that can dispay millions of colors not thousands (my guess). He tells me that he'll refund my money since all the macbook pro's appear to do this. I can't get him to commit that the banding is incredibly ridiculous on a pro machine. He then bring over the Lead Genius, Rohan Samahon. He sees the banding and proceeds to explain LCD technology, I stop him and say that I have no problems with the LCD's on my old powerbook, my Dell 20" and others - so don't tell me about limitations unless Apple has put on limited/cheap screes (my opinion). He gives me a case #, I will follow up on it once in a while, but I don't hold much hope. SO, use Photoshop or Pages, draw a gradient fill box, see the crappy display and take that to your nearest mac store. If in SF, ask to speak to the guys I mentioned above. I am most likely going to return mine and get my money back and keep working on my old powerbook. I believe if the screens truly can only show something like 260,000 colors that Apple is being very dishonest and should be taken care of with a nice class action law suit. I believe Palm did something like that too, said their PDA did so many colors, but actually did less. They paid out to each user I believe.
Oh, I did test the Macbooks, a black one and white one and they did gradients perfectly. I also played with a 24" iMac, also did fine with the gradient fill. So I'm 99% sure it's poor LCD display on the 'PRO' macbooks. For shame.

Took my new MBP C2D 2.33/2G/120G with the banding
problem to the Apple store after Apple Care set up an
appointment for me at the SF Apple Store. Went in
and they checked it out. The first guy was mean and
if I had been anyone I would have had him fired, he
would stomp off to go check something then come back
and basicaly say 'What do you want me to do? I didn't
make these." Luckily, I kept my cool (barely) and he
got me to a Media Genius (do not recall his name).
He saw the banding too, and on all the 15" in the
store too! Then he calls his boss over, Tim Cherven,
Manager per his card. Nice enough, he sees the
bands and says how can I be made happy. I say, sell
me what you advertised and I bought - a Macbook that
can dispay millions of colors not thousands (my
guess). He tells me that he'll refund my money
since all the macbook pro's appear to do this. I
can't get him to commit that the banding is
incredibly ridiculous on a pro machine. He then
bring over the Lead Genius, Rohan Samahon. He sees
the banding and proceeds to explain LCD technology,
I stop him and say that I have no problems with the
LCD's on my old powerbook, my Dell 20" and others -
so don't tell me about limitations unless Apple has
put on limited/cheap screes (my opinion). He gives
me a case #, I will follow up on it once in a while,
but I don't hold much hope. SO, use Photoshop or
Pages, draw a gradient fill box, see the crappy
display and take that to your nearest mac store. If
in SF, ask to speak to the guys I mentioned above.
I am most likely going to return mine and get my
money back and keep working on my old powerbook. I
believe if the screens truly can only show something
like 260,000 colors that Apple is being very
dishonest and should be taken care of with a nice
class action law suit. I believe Palm did something
like that too, said their PDA did so many colors,
but actually did less. They paid out to each user I
believe.
h, I did test the Macbooks, a black one and white one
and they did gradients perfectly. I also played with
a 24" iMac, also did fine with the gradient fill. So
I'm 99% sure it's poor LCD display on the 'PRO'
macbooks. For shame.

The only thing I find interesting is that all the macbook and macbook pro displays are 6-bit and only capable of of 260000 colors or whatever it is, but when they're booted into windows the gradients are much better and there is almost no banding. It's the dithering part that is not working properly and only Apple knows why.

I've searched around and have discovered that most/many LCD's use 6 bit...it's the dithering/blending (done by the display itself I'm guessing) that controls how good it blends and looks. I honestly don't care about the 6 bit issue, I just want to know why my old titanium powerbook display rocks and my soon to be returned macbook pro screen has banding, limited viewing angle, etc? I like OS X too much to give up on Apple, but I will take a break from their macbooks for a while and see what happens to the quality. They are being very cool about letting me return the macbook for a refund - so I can't even complain about customer service. OS X is the best, Apple is ok, but their portable screens (except the macbook 13") are terrible (my opinion). An almost solution is to attach your macbook to an external display and see if it's looks any better to you. I attached a cheapie LCD and it looked better color, gradient and angle-wise than the built in screen --but I am mobile and can't carry a second display around.

Don't get me wrong by what I'm about to say--I know Apple does many wonderful things, has many wonderful products, treats most of their customers right, and sometimes like kings, etc. I'm a longtime supporter, but only when they're right.

So I have to say: sorry, there can't be any interpretation of the phrase "both [internal and external displays] at millions of colors", other than that Apple, and all the non-Apple manufacturers that make laptops, are lying about the internal display spec. 262,000 colors, dithered, interpolated, etc., even to show maybe a couple million colors, isn't millions of colors, not by the definition that it's meant till now--enough colors to prevent the type of banding that people are seeing now. There are no two ways to interpret the phrase. It's a flat, bald-faced lie meant to separate you from your money, and to save laptop manufacturers a few bucks. This isn't a case of fudging by meaning it's the graphics circuitry that can support millions of colors (it can), but only with an external display--they come right out and lie, and say the internal display they use, can also display millions of colors. It can't. Even my old Apple Studio Display 17" LCD, displays the gradients linked to in this thread just fine, EVEN WHEN MY DISPLAYS PREFS ARE SET TO THOUSANDS OF COLORS--there's some graininess, but not the type of banding people are seeing with their MacBook Pros. I'm sure any of the Powerbook G4s would fare well too.

8-bit LCD panels are still being made, and Apple could have used them. Like other manufacturers, they just wanted to "save" some money by going with an LCD that can't display millions of colors.

Somehow, a few people with seemingly identical MacBook Pro models, have displays that have little if any of these problems. If Apple could manage that with a few MacBook Pros, they could have managed it with all of them. But that costs money that cash-strapped Apple doesn't have (billions in the bank isn't enough of a cushion for Apple). Maybe Apple threw in a few 8-bit displays as a legal maneuver to say in court, if it comes to that: "Look, THESE ones display millions of colors--we didn't say ALL MacBook Pros would."

Apple is really fond of Orwellian Newspeak. Funny, for the company whose ad that introduced the Mac in 1984, condemned an Orwellian future.

That rant said, if the problem is some weird mismatch between the display in many MacBook Pros, and how OS X is addressing the display, given that booting into Windows shows much less if any of these problems, and some types of calibration reduce the problem noticeably, and the MacBooks (non-Pro) also have 6-bit LCDs and don't have this banding problem--then why doesn't Apple fix the software? If there's no way for the OS to determine what LCD model it's addressing, and hence to automatically compensate for the problem on a per-LCD model basis, then surely Apple could develop a patch that any user who's seeing this problem, could manually install, possibly something added to the Displays prefpane.

Apple has enough engineering muscle to fix this fast. Maybe, as is typical, they've put the fix into OS 10.5, and will point people to that as the solution. What if not all MacBook Pro users want to shell out $130 for OS 10.5 just to fix their display problems?