sRGB vs other Color Temperature?

[edtorious]

So I bought a 2018 Mac Mini and a 4K monitor. In the monitor they have a view mode settings for Standard, Game or Mac. In Mac mode, I noticed the color temperature is defaulted to sRGB, there are other options, Bluish, Cool, Native, Warm or User Color. In sRGB, I noticed the brightness is really low and defaulted at 25 out of 100 setting and for some reason, the contrast setting is locked out and set at 70. If I change the brightness to 100 setting, it looks better. But if I change the color temperature to Native instead of sRGB, it seems Native is better looking. Is sRGB setting better though? What should I do?

 

[rmdeluca]

So I bought a 2018 Mac Mini and a 4K monitor. In the monitor they have a view mode settings for Standard, Game or Mac. In Mac mode, I noticed the color temperature is defaulted to sRGB, there are other options, Bluish, Cool, Native, Warm or User Color. In sRGB, I noticed the brightness is really low and defaulted at 25 out of 100 setting and for some reason, the contrast setting is locked out and set at 70. If I change the brightness to 100 setting, it looks better. But if I change the color temperature to Native instead of sRGB, it seems Native is better looking. Is sRGB setting better though? What should I do?

This is a tough one to answer without some context. Are you using the Mini for professional graphics work where color matching is important? If so, you should not trust any settings on the monitor until you've calibrated it or had it calibrated.

If not, I'd still recommend you at least do a basic calibration of black/white levels and color temperature, which OSX has built-in facilities for inside "Display Preferences."

Game mode is usually low latency but could possibly cause weird ghosting artifacts while you're in the GUI.

"Bluish" and "Cool" are usually the profiles used in stores because of the bluish tint of their artificial lighting e.g. fluorescent and LED lights that aren't specifically tuned to be warmer. You generally don't want to be using the blue profiles in real life because they are simply wrong and unrealistic, especially with skin tones.

"Warm" is often closest to cinema and is usually the preset most calibrators tell you to start at unless your monitor has sophisticated calibration capabilities built-in. Or, possibly, you'd want to start at "Native" for calibrating.

As for whether sRGB is "better" or not is kind of a misnomer. It is simply an agreed upon standard - in theory a color value of 100R, 80B and 150G should look the same on any monitor conforming to the sRGB standard. In practice, they never do unless they are of high quality and well calibrated.

TL;DR: if you're not particular about color matching, use the profile you like most. If you are, calibrate regardless of profile.

 

[Fishrrman]

I wouldn't leave the display brightness at 100%.
I'd put it down around 70-80%, max.

I'm not doing photography processing or other work where "color conformity" is critical.
So... I just use a display color setting that is "most pleasing" to my eyes.
Whatever it happens to be... if I like it, I use it.

Works for me.