MBP Desaturated?

Hi Guys,

I have a new MBP with a matt screen. I have just noticed how different the colours are between my Dell PC monitor displaying a jpg in windows and my mac book pro displaying the same jpg in leopard.

The colours in the image on my pc are very vibrant and saturated yet on my mbp they look as if someone has grabbed the saturation slider in photoshop and dragged it right down!

I have changed my colour profile to 2.2 but still no joy

Does anyone know the reason for this?

Thanks for your help

Two things...
First, I would suggest calibrating your screen. Simply changing the color profile isn't always enough. Do a full screen calibration. It sounds like the Gamma levels are way off.

Secondly, a matte screen is going to give a much more true representation of color. Screens that are glossy and even some CRT screens can sometimes make images appear over-saturated. Sure, sometimes this can be "better" looking, though it isn't completely accurate. So, even after you calibrate your screen, it may still appear 'muted' when compared to your older screen. You are just seeing a more accurate color with the matte screen.

And this thread might also give further explanation to your question. It could be the different colour gammas, the way Windoze and the Mac manage colour. I always feel that an image that was made on a WinBox looks bland, lacks vivid colour and contrast.

Also bear in mind that the default energy saver schema dims the screen somewhat while running on battery. Do you see a difference between the color representation when on battery vs. on AC?

One other thing to consider as well is that MBP has an ambient light sensor and the brightness of the display fluctuates with the ambient light. This can throw off your perception of the color trueness as well.

All of this leads me to believe that if you are planning to do accurate color work on your MBP, use a properly calibrated external monitor. In general, you COULD disable all of the features I mentioned above for MBP display, but you really don't want to - they reduce energy usage, thus increasing the amount of lifetime per battery charge.

D3v1L80Y said:

Two things...
First, I would suggest calibrating your screen. Simply changing the color profile isn't always enough. Do a full screen calibration. It sounds like the Gamma levels are way off.

Secondly, a matte screen is going to give a much more true representation of color. Screens that are glossy and even some CRT screens can sometimes make images appear over-saturated. Sure, sometimes this can be "better" looking, though it isn't completely accurate. So, even after you calibrate your screen, it may still appear 'muted' when compared to your older screen. You are just seeing a more accurate color with the matte screen.

Click to expand...

I hooked my mac up to the screen which my pc uses, the colour still looks the same coming from the mac. So its either my mac itself or my pc.. although I have looked at it n various pc's and the colour is still much more saturated than my macs output just like my own pc display. Unfortunately I dont have another mac to check it against.

How would I go about doing a full screen calibration? Is this under display - color in the sys prefs or are you refering to something else?

Thanks for your help

mac57 said:

Also bear in mind that the default energy saver schema dims the screen ...

Click to expand...

Hi Mac57, im running on ac at full brightness and the auto sensor is off. I wish it was something that simple though

MacHeadCase said:

And this thread might also give further explanation to your question. It could be the different colour gammas, the way Windoze and the Mac manage colour. I always feel that an image that was made on a WinBox looks bland, lacks vivid colour and contrast.

Click to expand...

I agree, an image that looks saturated on a pc is bland on a mac, but what happens when you make an image look vivid on a mac, does it look over-saturated on a pc :S ?

macandme said:

How would I go about doing a full screen calibration? Is this under display - color in the sys prefs or are you refering to something else?

Click to expand...

You need a calibration tool/software. Start here, and then look at their product review: http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/color_management.htm

EORI said:

You need a calibration tool/software. Start here, and then look at their product review: http://www.drycreekphoto.com/Learn/color_management.htm

Click to expand...

Thanks EORI. So what exactly do they do?
Why is it that monitors aren't calibrated correctly when you purchase them?

Would this explain the colour differences between my pc display and my mac? If the image looks similar on all the pc's ive viewed it on, how come its so different on my mac?

Thanks for your help