I just took delivery of a new, late 2012 27" iMac. The screen seems to be really yellow compared to my early 2011 MBP HR/AG. How can I find out if the iMac is displaying true colors or not?
Wow! So much better now that its calibrated. Still a little warm compared to other devices but, grey colors don't appear beige anymore. The factory setting was really off.
Wow! So much better now that its calibrated. Still a little warm compared to other devices but, grey colors don't appear beige anymore. The factory setting was really off.
Eh... it's just tweaking the profile. I would be careful with that utility. It breaks more than it fixes much of the time, but as long as you don't notice any obvious anomalies you're fine.
Can you elaborate more? What could it break? What kind of anomalies? All the utility did was create a new color profile that I am now using instead of the factory "iMac" profile.
I just took delivery of a new, late 2012 27" iMac. The screen seems to be really yellow compared to my early 2011 MBP HR/AG. How can I find out if the iMac is displaying true colors or not?
Feel free to ask specific questions on any of this. I tried to edit out some of the rambling and include suggestions for how I would go about it if you are going to use that utility. I just don't think people understand the mechanics of it. It's a shiny button that says calibrate, which in my opinion isn't an ideal way to address your customer base.
This is not the most fun topic. First just remember there isn't one standard for everything. The closest possible match to something ubiquitous would be sRGB, and the imac tracks that well enough. What is difficult is that people read the word calibration and assume some low level hardware control is involved. This is not the case. The native hardware response of the display and its uniformity in both chroma and luminance measurements is whatever was delivered from the factory. The calibration assistant attempts to do two things. The first is to determine the nature of the real output at certain pivotal points. The second involves a transformation matrix relative to hit the desired target values. In the end the ICC display profile has to contain a description for color management purposes and output instructions fed to the gpu's framebuffer. It's a very coarse method of control, so it's really imperfect.
If you're going that route, my personal suggestion is not to make the profile stretch things any more than necessary. Give it 30 minutes to warm up. Turn out as many lights as possible. Lighting is generally not consistent throughout the day, and you're better off just analyzing the display itself if you already know the brightness level you want to use. The first screen says determine your display's native response. Position that in the middle of your screen. Do not have any distracting background behind it. It will bias your eyes. Go through the steps. For gamma and white point, I would just choose native. Most applications do have some level of color management and can deal with minimal conversions. All trying to force it to exactly 6500K Gamma 2.2 based on your visual observations will do is potentially limit its gamut, and on some of the notebooks sometimes cause banding wherever alpha values are used. I would just check native as it should account for that in the descriptive portion of the profile. After that I wouldn't overwrite the default profile. I would rename it so that you can compare from system preferences-->displays--> color. I don't use that utility, but I do use other programs. I tend to label profiles by display and date. If you want to maintain a relatively consistent output, redo it every couple months.
Again as I mentioned this is still limited as it is a very primitive method of adjustment. A colorimeter is better, but it's still not perfect. In the end what you get from the factory is what you get, but some people have reported yellow casts clearing up after a few weeks. I mentioned not to compare it to the non retina macbook pros, as the native characteristics are totally different.
Feel free to ask specific questions on any of this. I tried to edit out some of the rambling and include suggestions for how I would go about it if you are going to use that utility. I just don't think people understand the mechanics of it. It's a shiny button that says calibrate, which in my opinion isn't an ideal way to address your customer base.
Lots of useful advice. As the OP has bought a colorimeter though I'm sure he will be fine when he gets a uniform screen to calibrate. However the Spyder4Express is an entry level Colorimeter, I would go for the Pro or Elite which have a better quality sensor and more functionality in the software. Alternatively the Xrite ColorMunki or better still i1 Pro are good devices to.
Lots of useful advice. As the OP has bought a colorimeter though I'm sure he will be fine when he gets a uniform screen to calibrate. However the Spyder4Express is an entry level Colorimeter, I would go for the Pro or Elite which have a better quality sensor and more functionality in the software. Alternatively the Xrite ColorMunki or better still i1 Pro are good devices to.
Good information! I took me a couple of reads to digest. Thank you for taking the time to reply!\
Got the replacement iMac unboxed and setup today. The top half of the screen looks awesome! The bottom half, not so much. It's very yellow. There is also significant backlight bleeding in the bottom left hand corner. Ugh... off for another replacement.
I am sorry to hear that. Having suffered through a number of replacements because of a Yellow screen (in the past - 2011 iMacs), I can empathize. All the tenuous excitement building up to the delivery of the Machine, to only open it up and see the same problem manifest again.
Do you have the option of going to an Apple Store? If so, I would recommend having them unbox one for you, and for you to inspect it before you bring it back home. This is what I ended up doing 2 years ago.
Good luck.
Just got ANOTHER(#3) replacement today. The screen colors are perfect however, it has a lot of backlight bleeding. I feel like I am never going to get a perfect display. Is there anyone out there that does have one? I am getting majorly disappointed and almost want to just return the whole damn thing.