Graphics on internal display are washed

[pvdbogaard]

Laptop: washed colors​

Suddenly my Macbook pro 2017, 15" looked different. White background is perfect, black and colored text sharp and fine. However colors of pictures are washed out. Skin lacks details, and becomes an almost single tone unpleasant color. Colors of the Dock seem great. A colorful (multi color) background seems a bit duller, and flickers on the edges where one color changes into another. It looks like when moving the mouse the flickering is triggered. A single color background on the Desktop seems ok, although there is a flickering, albeit much less noticeable.
I upgraded from OSX 12 (Monterey) to latest 13.6 (Ventura). No differences. Attaching an external (4K) display does not suffer from the above: all is crisp, colorful and steady as it should be. The laptop display does not change when an external display is attached: pictures still washed out.

A hardware diagnostics test did not reveal anything: all is ok.

Any clues what this could be ?

 

[Ruggy]

I'd check the colour profile to see if it's somehow defaulted to something odd.
You do that by going into settings>displays and you'll see 'color profile' near the bottom.
If you click on the list (there are up and down arrows on mine) you get the option 'customise' at the bottom where you can calibrate your screen. You can try one of the others first if you like. It's probably should be an SRGB as default
If you hold the 'option' button down when you click on customise then you'll get the advanced menu ( a trick that's often worth checking) and then you'll be able to choose things like gamma.
I have no idea if it'll help I'm afraid but it's definitely where I would look.

 

[pvdbogaard]

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately I forgot to mention I already tried it. Without success.

 

[pvdbogaard]

I created a screenshot of a couple of washed out pictures and send them to myself to check the result on the iPhone. Just perfect there. Not sure on what layer in the stack the screenshot is taken but the issue happens above that layer.

 

[JPack]

Sounds like a hardware issue since screenshots don't reproduce the problem. That model is affected by Flexgate so I wouldn't be surprised if that was the cause.