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MBP M1 and LG 27UK850-W washed out colors

vs40 said:
Yeah, all those fake HDR 400/600 specifications are lame, because you can't get really deep blacks and precise local dimming with regular IPS panel. You need OLED or miniLED/FALD display for real HDR, otherwise you will only burn your eyes with unnecessary high full screen brightness and see ****** oversaturated colors and washed out blacks.

Software tone-mapping HDR->SDR looks much better than trying to watch it in fake HDR mode.
Click to expand...

Agreed-- I regret purchasing the this LG 27UK650, though it's generally just been a cheap secondary monitor. Here's hoping that Apple come out with a consumer level XDR display at the $1k price point or so sometime next year.
 
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I just ordered the LG 27UP850 for my new 14” MacBook Pro (ships in a couple of weeks).

Has the washed out colour bug with these monitors been fixed yet? Do you think it will be an issue with these new MacBook Pros?
 
Blue Sun said:
I just ordered the LG 27UP850 for my new 14” MacBook Pro (ships in a couple of weeks).

Has the washed out colour bug with these monitors been fixed yet? Do you think it will be an issue with these new MacBook Pros?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure if this will help... but I had the washed out color bug with my MacBook Air M1 and the LG 27UN850 (pretty similar, though the UP850 is a bit better). I carefully followed @stevemr123 's instructions above and that fixed everything for me—no washed out colors. But it came back after I switched the monitor to portrait mode. I followed @stevemr123 's instructions again and it cleared things up.

I upgraded to Monterey this morning, and things still look good (it didn't revert to the old settings). Though I haven't tried portrait mode again, so I don't know if I would have to redo the fix if I tried switching to portrait mode. But long story short: I'm running macOS Monterey and no longer have the washed out colors; in fact the screen looks wonderful. I don't see any reason things would be any different with the MacBook Pro new or old M1...
 
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caaalebbb said:
I'm not sure if this will help... but I had the washed out color bug with my MacBook Air M1 and the LG 27UN850 (pretty similar, though the UP850 is a bit better). I carefully followed @stevemr123 's instructions above and that fixed everything for me—no washed out colors. But it came back after I switched the monitor to portrait mode. I followed @stevemr123 's instructions again and it cleared things up.

I upgraded to Monterey this morning, and things still look good (it didn't revert to the old settings). Though I haven't tried portrait mode again, so I don't know if I would have to redo the fix if I tried switching to portrait mode. But long story short: I'm running macOS Monterey and no longer have the washed out colors; in fact the screen looks wonderful. I don't see any reason things would be any different with the MacBook Pro new or old M1...
Click to expand...
That’s great news! Thanks for taking the time to reply.
 
Some good news for y'all, just plugged in my new 14" MBP into my LG 27UK850-W, and the colors look good! No washed out issues on the new MBP, at least for me.

(Monterey 12.0)
 
Last edited:
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I am however getting a weird power cycling of the monitor (warning that it will enter standby -> blacks out -> turns back on -> repeat), through a Caldigit TS3+ dock.
 
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bwb said:
I am however getting a weird power cycling of the monitor (warning that it will enter standby -> blacks out -> turns back on -> repeat), through a Caldigit TS3+ dock.
Click to expand...
Not only you - I have the same weird thing with my Dell P2415Q USBC->DP, Big Sur and now Monterey. I read somewhere it is a 'Wake for network access' option which raise constant computer and monitor wake.

Apologies I'm writing on this thread not for Dell monitors.
 
ludmiloff said:
Not only you - I have the same weird thing with my Dell P2415Q USBC->DP, Big Sur and now Monterey. I read somewhere it is a 'Wake for network access' option which raise constant computer and monitor wake.
Click to expand...

Hmm-- wondering how anything network related is sneaking on the network link. I'll try disabling that. I can confirm a USB-C -> HDMI cable doesn't exhibit that issue: dock still plugged into the MBP but USB-C HDMI plugged in directly to the MBP as well. Planning to try USB-C -> HDMI plugged into dock later today. I wonder if this is DP specific.
 
Experimented more with this: "Wake for Network Access" and "Prevent your Mac from automatically sleeping when the display is off" both didn't make a difference, the display would constantly wake up as soon as it went to sleep. Connecting up over HDMI does work, it suspends and wakes up properly (in the limited testing I've done): it doesn't matter if the USBC -> HDMI is plugged into the dock or the laptop directly, still works in both cases. Also, an active DP -> HDMI adapter plugged into the dock works as well. Again, CalDigit TS3+... hopefully they come up with a workaround on their side.
 
@bwb, I'm sure the power options worked for me for a while, then I reverted to defaults and not checked again until your response. Now, they don't. Anyway, I can confirm HDMI->HDMI on Mac mini M1 with proper plist patch works as intended - no power cycling, RGB output. with USB-C->DP - no change, and monitor wakes up every 2-5 minutes. On top of that, my Mac mini still wakes up constantly regardless of the cables - I can hear a 'click---click-click' sound through my cheap external speakers whenever it wakes or going to sleep again :) Glad the monitor still sleeping.
 
Hello everyone, I finally ordered a brand new LG UL850-W to replace my older Dell. Although the picture looks good on Monterey, Mac mini M1 and USB-C -> USB-C cable, I liked to tweak the windowserver plist and check it out. What is strange, after recreation the file is almost empty. Can someone confirm that.

Here is what my windowserver plist looks like, is it correct or I'm missing something:

XML: 
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>DisplayUUIDMappings</key>
    <dict>
        <key>070E3C96-E381-1EFF-0F93-5A69417CA049</key>
        <string>6756F5E8-96CE-48C0-A363-EB500A707E26</string>
    </dict>
</dict>
</plist>
 
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stevemr123 said:
Yeah, MonitorControl is a great app, I highly recommend it to everybody, it's a life saver! But please note that MonitorControl won't fix this specific washed out color issue as it is not designed to do so (MonitorControl controls the backlight brightness of the display via DDC/CI). The washed out colors arise from the fact that the new M1 macs tend to misconfigure the RGB range or appropriate color format (YCbCr vs RGB) on some displays and Apple cannot seem to fix this issue (probably the guy who wrote the graphics driver quit Apple or went to work on a different project or something).

---

For future reference here is the ultimate guide to fix the washed out display problem on M1. Tested to work on Monterey as well.

1. Download BBEdit (free)
2. Select the menu option Go » Go to Folder... in Finder
3. Enter ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost (please note the ~ character at the beginning!)
4. Look for the file called com.apple.windowserver.displays.[Very Long UUID].plist
5. If it exists, delete it!
6. Select the menu option Go » Go to Folder... in Finder
7. Enter /Library/Preferences
8. Look for the file called com.apple.windowserver.displays.plist
9. Open the file using BBEdit (Note: a simple text editor will not suffice, since it is a compressed plist file)
10. Here comes the hard part:

Under every <key>CurrentInfo</key> item there is a longer <dict> ... </dict> section. If the resolution in this section seems to match the display with the washed out image (look for items like <real>1440</real> and <real>2560</real> for a display with 2560x1440 resolution for example), then under the closing </dict> you need to copy the following:

XML: 
                    <key>LinkDescription</key>
                    <dict>
                        <key>BitDepth</key>
                        <integer>8</integer>
                        <key>EOTF</key>
                        <integer>0</integer>
                        <key>PixelEncoding</key>
                        <integer>0</integer>
                        <key>Range</key>
                        <integer>1</integer>
                    </dict>

You might need to do this in server places. You don't have to copy this block to items that DO NOT start with <key>CurrentInfo</key> but with other stuff (like <key>UnmirrorInfo</key>). Also you shouldn't have to copy this to items which belong to properly working displays, but it won't really hurt if you do.

Also it might be, that this section is already present but with different values (Big Sur usually places this section but with wrong values, Monterey tends not to place this section) - like the number under PixelEncoding might be 1 or the value under Range might be 0. If this is the case, then you need to correct these values to look like the example above.

11. Save the file
12. Reboot

If things went well, then the screen should have proper colors.

Here is an example of a properly fixed com.apple.windowserver.displays.plist file:



Hope this helps!
Click to expand...
Hey,
I can't find com.apple.windowserver.displays.plist in my preferences?

I found com.apple.windowserver.displays.[Very Long UUID].plist and deleted it but there's no com.apple.windowserver.displays.plist, all I found was com.apple.windowserver.dat?
 
stevemr123 said:
Yeah, MonitorControl is a great app, I highly recommend it to everybody, it's a life saver! But please note that MonitorControl won't fix this specific washed out color issue as it is not designed to do so (MonitorControl controls the backlight brightness of the display via DDC/CI). The washed out colors arise from the fact that the new M1 macs tend to misconfigure the RGB range or appropriate color format (YCbCr vs RGB) on some displays and Apple cannot seem to fix this issue (probably the guy who wrote the graphics driver quit Apple or went to work on a different project or something).

---

For future reference here is the ultimate guide to fix the washed out display problem on M1. Tested to work on Monterey as well.

1. Download BBEdit (free)
2. Select the menu option Go » Go to Folder... in Finder
3. Enter ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost (please note the ~ character at the beginning!)
4. Look for the file called com.apple.windowserver.displays.[Very Long UUID].plist
5. If it exists, delete it!
6. Select the menu option Go » Go to Folder... in Finder
7. Enter /Library/Preferences
8. Look for the file called com.apple.windowserver.displays.plist
9. Open the file using BBEdit (Note: a simple text editor will not suffice, since it is a compressed plist file)
10. Here comes the hard part:

Under every <key>CurrentInfo</key> item there is a longer <dict> ... </dict> section. If the resolution in this section seems to match the display with the washed out image (look for items like <real>1440</real> and <real>2560</real> for a display with 2560x1440 resolution for example), then under the closing </dict> you need to copy the following:

XML: 
                    <key>LinkDescription</key>
                    <dict>
                        <key>BitDepth</key>
                        <integer>8</integer>
                        <key>EOTF</key>
                        <integer>0</integer>
                        <key>PixelEncoding</key>
                        <integer>0</integer>
                        <key>Range</key>
                        <integer>1</integer>
                    </dict>

You might need to do this in server places. You don't have to copy this block to items that DO NOT start with <key>CurrentInfo</key> but with other stuff (like <key>UnmirrorInfo</key>). Also you shouldn't have to copy this to items which belong to properly working displays, but it won't really hurt if you do.

Also it might be, that this section is already present but with different values (Big Sur usually places this section but with wrong values, Monterey tends not to place this section) - like the number under PixelEncoding might be 1 or the value under Range might be 0. If this is the case, then you need to correct these values to look like the example above.

11. Save the file
12. Reboot

If things went well, then the screen should have proper colors.

Here is an example of a properly fixed com.apple.windowserver.displays.plist file:



Hope this helps!
Click to expand...

Actually it worked, I just had to remove the ~ at the beginning as the plist wasn't in my User Preferences but on the General Mac Preferences.

So if anyone is having issues finding it may be within "/Library/Preferences/"
 
Hi all - wondering if LG27UP850 (UL860, UN850 older models) will work through USB-C to USB-C with my M1 MacBook Air 2020. It has been rather hard to find a large screen to work through USB-C. I already returned a LG34WN80C as it didn't connect through USB-C even with thunderbolt 4 and an Apple thunderbolt 3 cable.
 
Kuehl18 said:
Hi all - wondering if LG27UP850 (UL860, UN850 older models) will work through USB-C to USB-C with my M1 MacBook Air 2020. It has been rather hard to find a large screen to work through USB-C. I already returned a LG34WN80C as it didn't connect through USB-C even with thunderbolt 4 and an Apple thunderbolt 3 cable.
Click to expand...
Update: I bought the 27UN850-W and it works great connected to my M1 MacBook Air 2020 USB-C to USB-C.
 
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Here is the screenshot:

Screen Shot 2022-03-31 at 12.52.14 PM.png


This is after using the MacOS calibration tool. It does not change it much from the setting labeled "LG HDR 4K" which is the default setting. Below is a screenshot of all available settings, which in my opinion all give worse results on the contrast levels test above.

Screen Shot 2022-03-31 at 12.55.49 PM.png


Keep in mind this is my first time buying an "expensive" monitor. I am not using it for color accuracy or gaming. I just wanted more screen real estate, a power delivery USB-C port, and some downstream USB ports for a mouse and keyboard. The "LG OnScreen Control" program only gives me options for screen splitting, which works for me.

Thanks for showing me the testing website. I am interested in learning more about display settings and accuracy so if you have any further questions, tests, or want to share your opinion on my image please do!
 
Kuehl18 said:
Thanks for showing me the testing website. I am interested in learning more about display settings and accuracy so if you have any further questions, tests, or want to share your opinion on my image please do!
Click to expand...

Thank you for your screenshot. Now I just realise the screenshot should ALWAYS be fine. My bad. What I really need to know is are you able to distinguish clearly the last two or three segments of red levels. Also green and blue ones. Visually, not by screenshooting.

I bought a unit which does such a bad red levels that I really did not distinguish last three segments of red. I've tried many things, the one which helps me was Night shift mode on System Preferences > Displays, or calibration with color temp around 5500. Anyway, that was not acceptable for me.And I returned it. I was told it can be fixed with good hardware calibration tool, but I cannot afford it for a single shot usage.

Another good testing site is Eizo test, especially Color distance module.
 
So it's 2023 and I'm editing my plist file per the amazing directions in this forum. In my currentinfo section, my initial depth is set to 7!? is this right? I have the lg27uk850w monitor --- this should be 8 correct? here's a copy paste with my edited linkdescription at the end:

<dict>
<key>CurrentInfo</key>
<dict>
<key>Depth</key>
<integer>7</integer>
<key>High</key>
<real>1080</real>
<key>Hz</key>
<real>60</real>
<key>IsLink</key>
<false/>
<key>IsVRR</key>
<false/>
<key>OriginX</key>
<real>0.0</real>
<key>OriginY</key>
<real>0.0</real>
<key>Scale</key>
<real>2</real>
<key>Wide</key>
<real>1920</real>
</dict>
<key>LinkDescription</key>
<dict>
<key>BitDepth</key>
<integer>8</integer>
<key>EOTF</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PixelEncoding</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>Range</key>
<integer>1</integer>
 
an uy
eleganteuni said:
So it's 2023 and I'm editing my plist file per the amazing directions in this forum. In my currentinfo section, my initial depth is set to 7!? is this right? I have the lg27uk850w monitor --- this should be 8 correct? here's a copy paste with my edited linkdescription at the end:

<dict>
<key>CurrentInfo</key>
<dict>
<key>Depth</key>
<integer>7</integer>
<key>High</key>
<real>1080</real>
<key>Hz</key>
<real>60</real>
<key>IsLink</key>
<false/>
<key>IsVRR</key>
<false/>
<key>OriginX</key>
<real>0.0</real>
<key>OriginY</key>
<real>0.0</real>
<key>Scale</key>
<real>2</real>
<key>Wide</key>
<real>1920</real>
</dict>
<key>LinkDescription</key>
<dict>
<key>BitDepth</key>
<integer>8</integer>
<key>EOTF</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>PixelEncoding</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>Range</key>
<integer>1</integer>
Click to expand...
just an update on this, i did change some of the values to 8 where I saw it, but unfortunately, every time it goes into sleep mode and comes back the monitor looks washed out and I have to make all the edits again and restart... any help would be appreciated.
 
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