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Snow Leopard ruined the colors on non-Apple display... how do I fix it?

Same problem - blue washed out when watching movies

Hi,

I am getting the same problem. Icon colors are all wrong, but also when you watch a movie the blue has gone. I have a mac-mini attached to a samsung TV via the tv's vga port (only has one hdmi slot that is being used)

I have tried re-calibrating, resetting, re-installing. There is something wrong with the color map since upgrading to Snow Leopard!
 
Intel Mini; Princeton 17" monitor; same problems

Also, none of the profiles can be deleted -- that button is always impossible to select. I've created several dozen.

History:

10.6.1
Upgraded from 10.5.
Reset the monitor.
Tried most of the above, will go back and try'em all methodically.

Ah, here's a hint.

Opened the ColorSync Utility.
It does not see most of the recently created profiles.

I see them when I use the System Preferences/Display/Color tool, but

I went to the ColorSync help under Where are ColorSync Profiles .... and it only sees one of the several new profiles I"ve created trying to solve this. Its verify tool says no problems found.

------
EDIT, ok, found I could delete the profiles from the folder in the Library.
Suspect the older ones from the previous OX 10.5 had something incompatible.
--------
Dang, is there a way to do a clean install of 10.6 at all? I thought there was not.



------

Checked the flaky loose adapter, which does screw up colors whenever it gets slightly loose. It's ok at the moment.

Dang I miss the little knurled screws that meant to hold cables in place.
 
colors in finder look washed out

I'm having the same issue and it seems to only affect the finder. It's somewhat subtle but you can tell that colors in the dock and finder seem muted and dull. I've experienced this on both my screens (home - dell 2408, work - 23" cinema).

I've made a screenshot and you can tell the PS logo for the dock and the PS logo in PS (and a web png of the ps logo) are totally different colors.

This has been rather frustrating, it's not the Gamma thing since I've always ran my machine in 2.2 since I do web design and it's been calibrated many times now and still the lame colors in the finder.

color_shift.jpg


Anyone have any leads on this?
 
I had a similar problem with ichat and mail icons being purplish. Deleted the dock.plist as was mentioned earlier...problem solved!
 
Princeton 17" -- not Not NOT solved dagnabbit

Maybe Apple just wants me to buy a new monitor?

Apple imagines I always buy new hardware every time I upgrade -- they leave a lot of hardware behind that just has to be thrown in the trash or else has to have an old operating system kept around to keep using it. I more or less got used to stuff being unsupported but this is ridiculous.

For this Princeton 17" VGA --- the brightness has to be set at zero, to get the very first little oval-in-square thing to be right.

Then after that:

Of the several displays with the apple in the horizontal bars, two of them just don't have enough range to work, the little dot needs to be pushed past the edge of the available range up or down to get the apple and the horizontal lines to match -- and of course it won't accept that.

And the color temperature settings -- all the choices are in that fancy color map as a line drawn across it, to pick the white spot? All are very wrong.

Well, say that line slants from (for those of you who remember analog clock faces, to indicate direction) about 2 o'clock to about 8 o'clock and the little dot is moving along that line in picking any of the standard settings used by various professions, all of which look really strange.

When I check the 'Native' box the x jumps off the line, completely, in the direction toward about 11 o'clock.
 
Now sure if this ties in but my issue has been that all the blue in the menus (spotlight, menu highlights) now look purple. All the other blues (app logos, pictures, text highlighting, etc) look fine. Changing the color profiles do nothing. This only happens when I am using both my MBP's display and a 20" cinema display-each one is fine on its own. Any thoughts?
 
TheSpaz said:
I figured it out you guys.

In the Finder, do this:

1. CMD-Shift-G
2. Type in "/private/var/folders" without quotes
3. Click through folders until you find "com.Apple.dock.iconcache"
4. Delete that file
5. Logout or kill the Dock

All done! No more purple icons! Yay!
Click to expand...

This worked for my Dock too, no more washed out colors, yay!
 
Well, you posted what worked to fix your problem with icons, but your fix doesn't work on my monitor.

For me 10.6 causes problems overall -- that can't be fixed by calibrating -- the settings that are offered aren't even within the working range of the monitor. 10.5 and earlier work fine. But I can't even make first step -- the little gray oval look right in the gray split background. The closest I can get is setting the brightness to zero.

That's more than just the icons. And it's only 10.6, not earlier systems, that have the problem.

I suspect it's like the printer thing, they just didn't write drivers for a whole lot of LCD monitor hardware yet.
 
I know this isn't really going to help anyone, but I'm running an old non-apple LCD and everything looks just fine. So it's certainly not a driver or monitor profile issue.
 
CubeHacker said:
I know this isn't really going to help anyone, but I'm running an old non-apple LCD and everything looks just fine. So it's certainly not a driver or monitor profile issue.
Click to expand...

You're right. That doesn't help. Even third party displays have built in OS X profiles.
 
CubeHacker said:
I know this isn't really going to help anyone, but I'm running an old non-apple LCD and everything looks just fine. So it's certainly not a driver or monitor profile issue.
Click to expand...
When the same monitor looks different running under 10.5 than it does under 10.6 then yes it is. (And I'm not talking about the gamma change either).

They (Apple) tweaked something. I can't get rid of that purple tint in all the "blues" of my Dell.
 
When the same monitor on the same hardware (Mac) with the same ICC profile differs in colours between Leopard and Snow Leopard than no, there isn't anything wrong with the ICC profiles. I think something went awfully wrong with the way ColorSync is working and interpreting the colour profiles. In the 10.6.2 seed notes there are some changes regarding graphics drivers, ColorSync and CoreImage which may fix the ColorSync problems. The problems are really noticeable with the blue colours. Some turn purple. It may have got something to do with colours being pushed into a different colour space and thus resulting in a different colour (blue turning purple) but that's just another theory.
 
dyn said:
When the same monitor on the same hardware (Mac) with the same ICC profile differs in colours between Leopard and Snow Leopard than no, there isn't anything wrong with the ICC profiles. I think something went awfully wrong with the way ColorSync is working and interpreting the colour profiles. In the 10.6.2 seed notes there are some changes regarding graphics drivers, ColorSync and CoreImage which may fix the ColorSync problems. The problems are really noticeable with the blue colours. Some turn purple. It may have got something to do with colours being pushed into a different colour space and thus resulting in a different colour (blue turning purple) but that's just another theory.
Click to expand...

I did notice like the menu selections look purple compared to the nice blue of Leopard. This is on all my Apple Displays.

Hopefully 10.6.2 will clear it up for everyone.
 
TheSpaz said:
I did notice like the menu selections look purple compared to the nice blue of Leopard. This is on all my Apple Displays.
Click to expand...
That's exactly what happens on my Dell. Purple menus. I use a Spyder3 colormeter and still can't correct it.

And yes, I did see the potential changes in 10.6.2 that may address this. Here's hoping.
 
thank you all for the sanity check

Much appreciated. I figured when changing from 10.5 to 10.6 and back makes the problem appear and disappear, it had to be something real.
But I was starting to wonder if it was just me.
 
I am 'happy' to see that I am not alone with this problem.

Here is my config and what I have found out (btw: sorry for my english, it's not my native language):

Config:
- MacPro running 10.6.1
- 2x Belinea 26" display connected with a DVI-HDMI cable (the display only has a HDMI and a VGA input), Resolution: 1900x1200

Problem:
- Some the icon in the dock are not blue but purple (Finder, iChat etc.)
- The menues are not blue but purple
- Same problem with the icons in the System Preferences (Dock, Monitor, Bluetooth, Spotlight etc.) -> all purple

- When I boot the Mac with an OSX 10.5 the colors are ok!
- When I do a screenshot with the wrong colors under 10.6, the screenshot looks ok on another Mac.
- When I open the Spotlight settings in the System Preferences the Spotlight icon in the left upper corner is perfect blue.

I really hope Apple is correcting this problem in 10.6.2.

-- Attila
 
AttilaG said:
I am 'happy' to see that I am not alone with this problem.

Here is my config and what I have found out (btw: sorry for my english, it's not my native language):

Config:
- MacPro running 10.6.1
- 2x Belinea 26" display connected with a DVI-HDMI cable (the display only has a HDMI and a VGA input), Resolution: 1900x1200

Problem:
- Some the icon in the dock are not blue but purple (Finder, iChat etc.)
- The menues are not blue but purple
- Same problem with the icons in the System Preferences (Dock, Monitor, Bluetooth, Spotlight etc.) -> all purple

- When I boot the Mac with an OSX 10.5 the colors are ok!
- When I do a screenshot with the wrong colors under 10.6, the screenshot looks ok on another Mac.
- When I open the Spotlight settings in the System Preferences the Spotlight icon in the left upper corner is perfect blue.

I really hope Apple is correcting this problem in 10.6.2.

-- Attila
Click to expand...

The 10.6.2 seed notes said something about fixing ColorSync issues. Hopefully that's what it means.
 
I'm getting really hinky behavior myself. I have a uMBP 15" and a Dell 3008WFP (connected with a miniDP->Displayport cable). I have calibrated both monitors using Spyder2Express. When I use the Dell the MBP is in clamshell mode. The Dell normally has a green cast to it until it warms up for 30 mins or so, but then the colors look right.

Here's what is weird. When I disconnect the MBP and use the laptop screen for a while, and then reconnect to the Dell, something goes wrong with color management. The correct icc profile is selected, but the colors on the Dell are off. For example, I have a race car desktop picture with some Ferrari-red livery, but when I reconnect the Dell after using the laptop screen, the red takes on more of a slight electric hot-pink hue, as if the gamut has changed. Deselecting and reselecting the color profile in the Displays pref pane doesn't help. I have to reboot to return the color to as calibrated.

Before I had this Dell, I was using a 23" ACD and did not have this problem, not that I ever noticed anyway.
 
I have been experiencing that problem in Leopard, especially when using dual screen. It did some strange things whenever I hooked/unhooked my MBP. In the end this and the constant (un)hooking all the cables made me switch to a desktop machine (the early 2009 Mac mini). I don't have any problems ever since because I don't have to (un)hook the monitor. Some people are also experiencing some problems with icc profiles going bananas in Snow Leopard after a reboot, switching users or just suddenly at random. Not sure if this a Snow Leopard specific problem or just an OS X problem.
 
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