How to reduce the white point on a MacBook Pro 2023 for reading books

[Gnomac43]

Hi,

how can I reduce the white point on a MacBook Pro 2023?
I have this option on 2 iPhones, and as far as I know it's present also on the iPad 9th and 10th gen, but not on the iPad Air.
I think that Apple assumes that the new OLED displays are better at making the black a true black because the LEDs turn off, but is it really the case?

Or shall I assume that Apple doesn't produce screens and drivers for reading but only for the max quality?
Well, whatever, I need this functionality because is a bless, so I can avoid buying that specific series of iPad, and the future doesn't look so bright because nothing above the 10th gen seems to have that functionality.
Plus, iPadOS is always more limited than macOS, changes that it gets implemented in future products is very little.

So, I need this functionality on my MacBook Pro, but how do I get it by myself considering that it's not there??
I don't want to go crazy and buy one of these tools and test it by mostly losing time based on the ambient light:

I just would like to have the same easy functionality on the iPhone. (it's under accessibility -> display -> reduce white point)

On the other hand, it's not only useful for reading books, but for me it's great for everything!

 

[MacInWin]

Will Settings>Accessibility>Display and change the Intensity at the bottom of the window on the right do what you want?

 

[Gnomac43]

Will Settings>Accessibility>Display and change the Intensity at the bottom of the window on the right do what you want?

Thanks, but it doesn't change anything on the white color, I'm using the default grayscale, but also with the other RGB options doesn't change the power to the white.

 

[MacInWin]

I don't know what you are trying to do, sorry. When I tested on my iPhone, the Accessability option for white point seemed to do the same as I can control wiht the display brightness. Is that what it's for? On the Mac, Settings>Displays, the brightness slider seems to me to match the iPhone whitepoint results.

If you need to calibrate the screen, you will need a calibrator like the one being demonstrated in the video.

 

[Gnomac43]

With the XDR display, it's different, it's described in this guide: Customise the calibration using the Pro Display Calibrator

The problem is that those 2 options are grayed out, I'm not sure what I need to do to access them...
The 1st option requires a very expensive item, it costs several thousands, I'm not gonna buy it...

 

[Gnomac43]

I found an improvement though, by lowering the brightness till the point I can read well, usually level 2 or 3, then apply the night vision, which is quicker and easier than manually filtering the colors (it's not what I wanted to do anyway).

This method, despite it's an improvement, it's not the same as the reduce white point function in the iPhone.
I can tell that because the colors don't become darker, therefore the light emitted is more than expected, and the white stays pretty much the same between close levels, like 2-3-4, unless I reduce the brightness, which makes it difficult to read.

All to say that the "reduce white point" it's a feature I really wish to have .

 

[Gnomac43]

The "color tint" is also a method, if you choose something near the dark orange, full red is too much.
This method is slower to apply compared to the night vision and it seems also inferior after a quick look.

 

[Gnomac43]

I found a third party application: Gamma Control 6.
It does what I need, or at least I can see that the black is true black and the white is reduced by choice.
I can't wait to fully test it.
(NOTE: it may work only with specific screens)

One thing was certain so far, the MacOS menu it's kind of buggy because it didn't allow me to change it from the UI, it seems that MacOS has things in place to make you change the gamma etc but for me it was greyed out...

 

[MacInWin]

One thing was certain so far, the MacOS menu it's kind of buggy

Really? Buggy? Exactly how did it fail and crash, and did you report the failure to Apple? Your first post said it wasn't there, now you say it's greyed out. Which is it, and where is it, if you found it?

 

[IWT]

the MacOS menu it's kind of buggy

Definitely need to report this to Apple. That way, should there be others, Apple will sort this.

Of course, occasionally, faults such as you mention, may not be reproducible across the Apple community; but worth a try.

Ian

 

[Gnomac43]

Really? Buggy? Exactly how did it fail and crash, and did you report the failure to Apple? Your first post said it wasn't there, now you say it's greyed out. Which is it, and where is it, if you found it?

At that time, I didn't know much about all this difficulty to make it work and I didn't know there was that option at all probably.

I didn't have a chance to test what Apple provides, it's still grayed out, but I've seen some people doing it on Youtube, the clear difference is that they were using another kind of integrated screen, so it may just be a driver issue and we won't get a fix anytime soon.
Gamma Control 6 works very well, just make sure you don't enable the option at boot, because if you screw up the colors, you may not see the screen .