Bizarre image previewing problems

[harrisonjr98]

This has been going on for weeks now and I've been scratching my head trying to figure it out. I included a screen recording below using black and white photos to emphasize, but let me provide context: when using Quick Look in finder to preview image files (I've tried both PNG and JPG), they'll often open and be "warm" even if the thumbnail shows the correct color. If they don't open as "warm," they switch to being warm when I start zooming and panning in the quick look window. Opening in Preview always opens as "warm" without fail. Opening in a proper image editor like Affinity or Photoshop appears fine, and uploads on the web appear fine - it's just quick look and preview, for whatever reason. It's most annoying when previewing shots from my actual camera, but it happens with any image file, even random web downloads etc. So it's not my camera! It's also NOT related to bad preview processing of RAW files, I know that's an issue. I'm talking normal jpg and png files.

https://imgur.com/a/hqRpQsz

This is what it looks like.

Here's the weirdest part - I know for a fact that it's related to my display color profiles to some extent. My monitor is a Dell S2721QS, and has a sort of "default" profile that macOS recognizes for it(?) but I'm not using that one. I'm using an RTINGS calibrated profile for this model of monitor (I know that panel variance probably negates the benefit, but it looks far better to my eye than the stock profile.) When using the RTINGS profile, if I select the *default* profile again, the macOS menu bar gets "warm".... no other white parts of the display output, just the menu bar. It's solved by a system restart.

The default profile, though, seems to be immune to this "color shift" in preview images - which I've only noticed occurring with the RTINGS profile. So... default profile = warm menu bar, solved only by restart. RTINGS profile = warm image previews, not solved by restart. It's not due to the white point specified in that profile, though, because it's clearly something that "kicks in" when I start panning and zooming....

I am basically at a loss for how to proceed. My monitor's colors are garbage with the default profile, but I can preview images without this bug. On my selected profile, there's clearly something borking my previews. Any guidance/experience MUCH appreciated.

 

[MevetS]

No direct advice, but have you considered getting a colorimeter and creating a custom profile for your monitor(s)?

 

[harrisonjr98]

No direct advice, but have you considered getting a colorimeter and creating a custom profile for your monitor(s)?

I have but it doesn’t seem there’s any offered that aren’t ~$150 at the very cheapest, which is not really economical when I only spent $300 on my monitor itself. I don’t believe the capabilities of the panel are high enough to warrant it vs a calibrated profile from rtings that’s probably 95% of the way there and just can’t account for unit-to-unit variance. Accuracy was night and day vs the default, and definitely good enough for me. If there’s some obvious way that I’m missing to calibrate my monitor effectively without a hardware investment I’m all ears!

 

[IceStormNG]

Have you tried to disable HDR in macOS display settings? It can mess with colors and contrast.
The profile is probably for the SDR mode, not HDR.

 

[harrisonjr98]

Have you tried to disable HDR in macOS display settings? It can mess with colors and contrast.
The profile is probably for the SDR mode, not HDR.

I actually don’t see the HDR checkbox available where it usually is? So I imagine macOS just knows this isn’t an HDR capable display.

 

[IceStormNG]

It should be directly in system preferences -> Display. Called High Dynamic Range.

There's a screenshot on this support page.

Play HDR video on Mac - Apple Support

Support for high dynamic range (HDR) video, such as HDR movies and TV shows from Apple or other providers, requires the latest version of macOS, a compatible Mac model, and an HDR10-compatible display, TV, or projector.

support.apple.com

 

[harrisonjr98]

There's also this support page:

If an HDR display is too bright or vivid on Mac

After installing macOS Catalina, you might notice unexpected changes in brightness, color, or contrast on your external HDR display, TV, or projector.

support.apple.com

I've checked the spot. It's not there for me, both with the default and RTINGS profiles.

 

[IceStormNG]

How did you connected the monitor? DisplayPort? HDMI? If HDMI you might just have a bandwidth limitation and run the monitor in 4:2:0 chroma subsample.

 

[harrisonjr98]

How did you connected the monitor? DisplayPort? HDMI? If HDMI you might just have a bandwidth limitation and run the monitor in 4:2:0 chroma subsample.

Using HDMI 2.1 cable, but HDMI 2.0 port on the M1 mini. Not sure how to adjust or even see compression ratio in macOS.

 

[IceStormNG]

HDMI 2.0 is not enough for 4K@60 10bit 4:4:4.
Better use DisplayPort.

So your display either runs on 8 bit 4:4:4 or 10bit 4:2:0

 

[harrisonjr98]

HDMI 2.0 is not enough for 4K@60 10bit 4:4:4.
Better use DisplayPort.

So your display either runs on 8 bit 4:4:4 or 10bit 4:2:0

I don't want 10bit 4:4:4, I only use this monitor for photo edits and even then I cross-check with other displays because I don't have the highest end setup lol. I haven't messed with any bit depth/comp ratio settings for this display, so unless macOS is using settings that it knows it doesn't have the bandwidth for I'm not sure this is the issue.

 

[IceStormNG]

I don't want 10bit 4:4:4, I only use this monitor for photo edits and even then I cross-check with other displays because I don't have the highest end setup lol. I haven't messed with any bit depth/comp ratio settings for this display, so unless macOS is using settings that it knows it doesn't have the bandwidth for I'm not sure this is the issue.

Why not? Your display is 10 bit (8bit + FRC afaik). macOS will set it to either 8bit 4:4:4 or 10bit 4:2:0. You cannot really affect it though as macOS doesn't offer any setting for it. Often, the monitor's OSD shows what is sent to the monitor.

For picture edit you want 4:4:4 chroma. 8 bit 4:4:4 is better than 10bit 4:2:0. But you cannot choose. macOS chose one setting it thinks it's best. You can see that under monitors in system report. Either it says 24bit or 30bit

 

[harrisonjr98]

Why not? Your display is 10 bit (8bit + FRC afaik). macOS will set it to either 8bit 4:4:4 or 10bit 4:2:0. You cannot really affect it though as macOS doesn't offer any setting for it. Often, the monitor's OSD shows what is sent to the monitor.

For picture edit you want 4:4:4 chroma. 8 bit 4:4:4 is better than 10bit 4:2:0. But you cannot choose. macOS chose one setting it thinks it's best. You can see that under monitors in system report. Either it says 24bit or 30bit

View attachment 1780304

Not sure if it's due to M1 or the monitor, but I checked System Information and don't have that.

 

[IceStormNG]

Oh.. I just looked it up. M1 omits the setting.

You could try

defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist

Then there is one config which says "Active=1"

With something like this:

Mode = {
                    BitsPerPixel = 32;
                    BitsPerSample = 10;
                    DepthFormat = 8;
                    IODisplayModeID = "-2147471360";
                    IOFlags = 34603015;
                    Mode = 1;
                    PixelEncoding = "--RRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGBBBBBBBBBB";
                    RefreshRate = "60.00001525878906";
                    .
                    .
                    .

This tells you it's 10bit. (BitsPerSample).

Maybe this works on M1. I don't get why Apple removed that.. it's already hard enough to set color depth on macOS.

Edit: Othewise: check your monitors OSD. It should tell you what input it receives.

 

[harrisonjr98]

Oh.. I just looked it up. M1 omits the setting.

You could try

defaults read /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist

Then there is one config which says "Active=1"

With something like this:

Mode = {
                    BitsPerPixel = 32;
                    BitsPerSample = 10;
                    DepthFormat = 8;
                    IODisplayModeID = "-2147471360";
                    IOFlags = 34603015;
                    Mode = 1;
                    PixelEncoding = "--RRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGBBBBBBBBBB";
                    RefreshRate = "60.00001525878906";
                    .
                    .
                    .

This tells you it's 10bit. (BitsPerSample).

Maybe this works on M1. I don't get why Apple removed that.. it's already hard enough to set color depth on macOS.

Another M1 casualty, it appears. Also just to explain myself a bit,

Why not? Your display is 10 bit (8bit + FRC afaik)

I meant that if I had to do DisplayPort over Thunderbolt and lose one of the TB ports, that's not worth it to me personally over 8-bit 4:4:4 over HDMI (I mean, my gut says that on a cheap IPS panel I'm not going to notice that difference anyway- I could be wrong on this point, but regardless - the output of the display is fine to my eye right now, and I'd rather fix the preview issues and continue using the HDMI port instead of using up one of my TB.)

 

[harrisonjr98]

I very much appreciate your help so far!

 

[IceStormNG]

View attachment 1780314
Another M1 casualty, it appears. Also just to explain myself a bit,


I meant that if I had to do DisplayPort over Thunderbolt and lose one of the TB ports, that's not worth it to me personally over 8-bit 4:4:4 over HDMI (I mean, my gut says that on a cheap IPS panel I'm not going to notice that difference anyway- I could be wrong on this point, but regardless - the output of the display is fine to my eye right now, and I'd rather fix the preview issues and continue using the HDMI port instead of using up one of my TB.)

Alright...

Did this happen since you got the M1 machine? I just tried it and my machine (Intel) it doesn't happen. I also have a custom profile that was published by the manufacturer. It could be a bug in Apple's code to read the image data and apply the color profile on M1 machines or in Bug Sur (I'm still on Catalina). Professional apps don't rely on Apple's code for that but their own.

Did you ever tried to use one of the various generic profiles your mac ships with? Yeah, the color will be off but does the bug only occurs on the RTINGS profile or also on other profiles except the one macOS autoselected for your monitor?

 

[harrisonjr98]

Alright...

Did this happen since you got the M1 machine? I just tried it and my machine (Intel) it doesn't happen. I also have a custom profile that was published by the manufacturer. It could be a bug in Apple's code to read the image data and apply the color profile on M1 machines or in Bug Sur (I'm still on Catalina). Professional apps don't rely on Apple's code for that but their own.

Did you ever tried to use one of the various generic profiles your mac ships with? Yeah, the color will be off but does the bug only occurs on the RTINGS profile or also on other profiles except the one macOS autoselected for your monitor?

Do you have the same display? I unfortunately got the display well after the M1 machine, and don't have an Intel mac lying around anymore to test. I actually do have two of the same display, and can confirm it occurs on both.

It could be a bug in Apple's code to read the image data and apply the color profile on M1 machines or in Bug Sur (I'm still on Catalina)

It's definitely code executing somewhere, because you can visibly see the "hitch" before it kicks in and it's visible in screen recordings, so it's not something physically happening with the display.

Alright...

Did this happen since you got the M1 machine? I just tried it and my machine (Intel) it doesn't happen. I also have a custom profile that was published by the manufacturer. It could be a bug in Apple's code to read the image data and apply the color profile on M1 machines or in Bug Sur (I'm still on Catalina). Professional apps don't rely on Apple's code for that but their own.

Did you ever tried to use one of the various generic profiles your mac ships with? Yeah, the color will be off but does the bug only occurs on the RTINGS profile or also on other profiles except the one macOS autoselected for your monitor?

I covered this in my original post, but there's even more strangeness to it that indicates software - see below:

When using the RTINGS profile, if I select the *default* profile again, the macOS menu bar gets "warm".... no other white parts of the display output, just the menu bar. It's solved by a system restart.

The default profile, though, seems to be immune to this "color shift" in preview images - which I've only noticed occurring with the RTINGS profile. So... default profile = warm menu bar, solved only by restart. RTINGS profile = warm image previews, not solved by restart. It's not due to the white point specified in that profile, though, because it's clearly something that "kicks in" when I start panning and zooming....

Also - I only got the display recently, and can't for the life of me remember if I had the issue before the 11.3 update unfortunately.

 

[IceStormNG]

Do you have the same display? I unfortunately got the display well after the M1 machine, and don't have an Intel mac lying around anymore to test. I actually do have two of the same display, and can confirm it occurs on both.

Nope. I have a different monitor. But I doubt it's the monitor.

It's definitely code executing somewhere, because you can visibly see the "hitch" before it kicks in and it's visible in screen recordings, so it's not something physically happening with the display.

I covered this in my original post, but there's even more strangeness to it that indicates software - see below:

Also - I only got the display recently, and can't for the life of me remember if I had the issue before the 11.3 update unfortunately.

I did some testing. I have an older MBP (2015) laying here that I used for testing Big Sur. It runs the 11.4 Beta 1 right now. When I set any other color profile for the display than the default one, you can clearly see it's kinda flickering when opening preview or quicklook and zooming in or out. Like as if it switches the color profile to something else and then quickly switches back. And that also happened on the MBP's internal display.

So that might be just a bug in Big Sur.

 

[harrisonjr98]

Nope. I have a different monitor. But I doubt it's the monitor.



I did some testing. I have an older MBP (2015) laying here that I used for testing Big Sur. It runs the 11.4 Beta 1 right now. When I set any other color profile for the display than the default one, you can clearly see it's kinda flickering when opening preview or quicklook and zooming in or out. Like as if it switches the color profile to something else and then quickly switches back. And that also happened on the MBP's internal display.

So that might be just a bug in Big Sur.

It's not the end of the world because it doesn't affect my actual editing programs, only a pain to be zooming into a preview to see if I hit focus and have everything go all wonky. At first I didn't connect it to the color profiles at all, now that I have I'm more relaxed knowing it's nothing completely inexplicable! It also used to be almost every Quick Look I opened, regardless of zoom/pan activity. Now it only seems to happen commonly when I start to zoom.

 

[IceStormNG]

Just a heads up. A few days ago I purchased a display calibration tool and calibrated my external monitor with it using DisplayCal and also X-Rite's i1 Profiler. When creating the profile, DisplayCal warned me that Apps using Apple Color Management (like Preview, Quicklook, etc) will only support certain types of profiles with limited calibration data. 3rd Party apps like Photoshop are not affected as they use their own color calibration system.

Maybe the profile was not made with that macOS limitation in mind and has this extra data that macOS Color Management cannot properly work with.

 

[harrisonjr98]

Just a heads up. A few days ago I purchased a display calibration tool and calibrated my external monitor with it using DisplayCal and also X-Rite's i1 Profiler. When creating the profile, DisplayCal warned me that Apps using Apple Color Management (like Preview, Quicklook, etc) will only support certain types of profiles with limited calibration data. 3rd Party apps like Photoshop are not affected as they use their own color calibration system.

Maybe the profile was not made with that macOS limitation in mind and has this extra data that macOS Color Management cannot properly work with.

I bet this is what it is! With that in mind I’ll probably just switch to another profile, but I’d love to calibrate my own- I just don’t know how to do it economically

 

[IceStormNG]

Well, you need a colorimeter. Otherwise, you cannot calibrate your monitor anyway.

Either the ones from DataColor (Spyder) or X-Rite (i1 Display series). And either their software or DisplayCal. They will produce the correct profiles for macOS.

Otherwise... I'm not sure. But maybe DisplayCal can convert the color profile to single curve + black point compensation. Don't know whether this is possible.

 

[harrisonjr98]

Well, you need a colorimeter. Otherwise, you cannot calibrate your monitor anyway.

Either the ones from DataColor (Spyder) or X-Rite (i1 Display series). And either their software or DisplayCal. They will produce the correct profiles for macOS.

Otherwise... I'm not sure. But maybe DisplayCal can convert the color profile to single curve + black point compensation. Don't know whether this is possible.

I know a colorimeter is needed for “real” calibration, but in the TV world there’s usually a mode that’s known to be the most accurate and then you can tweak sliders from there to get an acceptable result. I was hoping it’d be the same with monitors, I imagine there’s plenty of people out there with cheap displays just trying to find something better than the stock color

 

[IceStormNG]

Getting "acceptable results" and calibration is something different. TVs are designed for consumption. They don't need perfectly accurate colors. They just need to look great.

Monitors used for any type of color work needs to be calibrated. And our eyes are simply not up to the task to calibrate a screen.

If you need a calibrated screen, get a decent colorimeter. You don't even need one that is over the top. Look at Spyder or X-Rite i1 Display series.

Even my factory calibrated screen was slightly off and could be improved with some post-calibration. And over time, monitors change their colors slightly. So you need to correct that.