Having color issues with my MBP 14" M1 Max

[Lomaxxx]

Hello community,

i signed up today, because i got an unresolvable problem with the colors on my MBP 14 M1 Max.

The colors look totaly pale and washed out from the first day when i bought it last year. I recognized this with the first start and called the apple support, where we had a long chat and they told me to keep an eye on the next update or get to the genius bar.

Anyway... i searched through dozens of forums and one day i arranged myself with this, because i thought this could be because of the xdr display or whatever.

For about 2 month this issue triggered me again so i made an appointment at the apple store, to check my MBP near the exact same machine. They guys from the store told me that they have to repair the MBP, because they say it too.

But please let me explain it a little more in detail

I can reproduce one thing with a 100% success rate. When i reboot the MBP and the login screen appears...
The colors look pale and washed out. I then enter my password and the loading bar starts to run up. Around 1/4 of the loading bar the color mode gets really bright, colorful and very very good looking. Around at the middle the loading bar stops for a second and then BOOM the colors go back and look totally washed out and pale. And this stays forever, no matter what program i use. When i work in photoshop i noticed this too and so i changed proof to "Monitor RGB" to get at least some colors. I am working as a graphic designer and know the difference between CMYK and RGB, so only to clearout that i dont misunderstand this ;-)

I attach 2 screens. One with the pale and washed out colors and one when i turn it to monitor RGB.

When i go to YouTube and i chose a 4K video (and HDR) the colors look awesome. But normal videos look like descriped above. I took another appointment at the genius bar to try different things on the exact same model. The guys there have no clue what it is, but they see what i mean and they cant explain themself what the error could be. It could be the GPU or the logic board they told me. They asked me to try a clean install. I did it without any program installed. Same thing like descriped above. The very first start had the same issue.
I would like to record this thing with my iPhone, but colors on iPhone videos are way more colorful then seeing it with the own eyes.

I then had again a call with the apple support and they did a remote session where i had to hold my iphone camera on the MBP screen, so they can watch the boot process. And they saw it too, but they have no answer whats the issue

Ok, i could let me MBP there and hopefully they get it fixed... but what i cant understand is:

why am i able to get brightful and shiny colors when i turn on proof mode -> monitor RGB and why the colors look fantastic when i watch HDR 4K Videos. I know that the display change the mode to HDR when HDR is on the screen.

I finally have no clue and i will bring my MBP to the genius bar to get this fixed. I think this will take longer then expected, because they first wanna change the logic board. And my feelings say it has nothing to do with the LB. I can get the brightful colors when changing the monitor RGB profile. So it means the display is able to show the so called "fantastic colors".

Changing color profiles on the colorsync program doesnt take any effect. there is no visable change, no matter what profile i use.

So do you guys have any idea or clue what i can try? I know i could take the easy way and take it to the service. but it kills me to know the display CAN show awesome colors, but will not stay. On the other site i tried to extend this, cause i need the machine to work on.

yesterday i got my mac studio and the studio display. first look into the studio display was no WOAH effect, because i still have my imac 27" 5K. I changed color profile on the studio display to apple rgb for testing and BOOM far to bright colors, but it was only for testing purpose.

sorry for typing that much, but i am searching soon exact 1 year a solution why this happens. but i will bring my MBP to the service, before the 1 year warranty runs out

i am very thankful for any help or ideas to understand why this could happen and to get my inner peace

thank you

 

[Marsikus]

Hmm… I was comparing several 14” vs 16” in stores today. In many cases it looked to me that 14” shows more pale or blueish picture. I made sure for myself that color profile, true tone and night shift settings are identical. Is that your case as well?

Color-wise I preferred 13” MBP which has traditional IPS Retina display…

 

[Lomaxxx]

I cant tell to be honest. I had the 16" MBP with Intel Chip. After this i switched to the 13" and the MacBook Air M1. The MBA was one of the greatest MacBooks ive ever had and i regret it so much i sold it for the 14" M1. Not that i regret i bought the 14" M1 Max, but i would never ever sell my MBA again. I'd keep both.

From the first day i compared both... the M1 Max and the MBA and you could see a massive difference in the colors. I asked in a german forum and they told me it has to do i am using Apple RGB on the MBA. I surely know the difference and it wasnt an accident that i used the Apple RGB. I did it for a good reason. My problem is, that i can see the M1 Max CAN SHOW unbelivable bright colors, but it wont stay. And i want the M1 Max show me the most colorful colors when i wanna have it.

See the pictures above. If i change photoshop to monitor rgb the bright colors are there. so the m1 can show them, but it wont stay in the UI or anywhere else. I am only able the get these bright colors in photoshop (when switching to monitor rgb or apple rgb) and when i watch real 4K HDR videos on YouTube.

If this would help i will record my bootscreen. It is an unbelivable and strange thing that i enter my passwort (colors are pale there), then hit the enter key... loading bar load up 1/4 and then BOOM ultrabright colors showing up... loading bar hits 3/4 and bamm colors are pale again and stays.

it is so frustrating to have a 4000 euro m1 max and the colors look like i put my MBP in the washing machine 30 times or more.

If there is no solution from the forum, i have to bring it to the genius bar on monday.

 

[wilberforce]

When i reboot the MBP and the login screen appears...
The colors look pale and washed out. I then enter my password and the loading bar starts to run up. Around 1/4 of the loading bar the color mode gets really bright, colorful and very very good looking. Around at the middle the loading bar stops for a second and then BOOM the colors go back and look totally washed out and pale.

On my 14" MBP there is no loading bar after entering login password. The desktop just appears after about 2 seconds.

In Photoshop, yes I can see more saturated colors if using Proof Colors with Proof Setup as Monitor RGB, but only if the "Preserve RGB Numbers" is checked (in Custom...), which results in the colors being incorrectly mapped to the output color space.

I also checked with Photoshop on my 2020 5K iMac and it is essentially the same as my 14" MBP, with similar saturation of colors.

 

[Lomaxxx]

On my 14" MBP there is no loading bar after entering login password. The desktop just appears after about 2 seconds.

Believe it or not, but i thought myself that it takes to long to boot the machine. I mean you wont see the loading bar long. but when i see YT reviews and the creators open up a program it is immediately there. i tooks longer for me and i did an absolute clean install some days ago. no programs installed right now. But you see the jumping icon for 1-2 sec.

and i am talking about programs like the integrated calender
i tried apple diagnostics... no problems there

 

[Lomaxxx]

I hope you are not just trying to display the colors more saturated than they really are, just because it is more pleasing. Obviously, for graphics creation you want to work with accurate colors, not artificially boosted colors.

I know that man, because i am working as a graphic designer for 20+ years now. No complains about when it comes to print production. But i programing online shop too and for this reason sometimes you have to have other colorviews. Especially when customers comes with their neon or "hipster" colors in there logos and they want the footer in exact this color. i have this situation with one of my long time customer and he has nearly a 100% cyan in his logo. it is so hard to get a close match when you cant oversaturate the color temporarily

 

[6916494]

[...] Especially when customers comes with their neon or "hipster" colors in there logos and they want the footer in exact this color. i have this situation with one of my long time customer and he has nearly a 100% cyan in his logo. it is so hard to get a close match when you cant oversaturate the color temporarily

And what good is this for? Will any user of this online shop do that on a HDR-capable monitor? And no browser supports HDR for anything else than videos. The only real solution for graphics design is to use a professional calibrated monitor. And if you want to make the M1 MacBook Pro screen brighter there is still https://www.getvivid.app/.

 

[Lomaxxx]

And what good is this for? Will any user of this online shop do that on a HDR-capable monitor? And no browser supports HDR for anything else than videos. The only real solution for graphics design is to use a professional calibrated monitor. And if you want to make the M1 MacBook Pro screen brighter there is still https://www.getvivid.app/.

No brother, that does have nothing to do with HDR or whatever. I dont know if you are into this, but when the customer says he wants THIS, i have to make it like this or someone other will do it. I dont know if i explained it right, because english is not my native language. Its not my business what i think of these kind of colors in webpages. I can tell the customer the pros and cons and also the do and donts. But at the end of the day the customer have always the last words.

I know the display from the 14" M1 Max CAN show colorful and bright colors. And i know it can show also oversaturated colors. And i spend a lot of money on this, so it is physically my own. And i want to decided when i want colorful or oversaturated colors when ever i want. I dont want apple to tell me what kind of color palette i am allowed to show on my screen. If they cut this ability to configure this for my needs, i have to think about buying anything else, but no longer from apple.

But...
I think it will be easier to understand when i woudl record the bootscreen when i have to enter my password. At the login screen there is no HDR content too, but the MBP show very saturated and colorful colors there and as soon as the desktop is loaded it gets like washed out. I cannot accept this situation, in no way.

I will try to record this and i think everyone will understand it betten then. But what i said above is very important for me

 

[wilberforce]

It sounds like you have some (incorrect) calibration being applied.

Here are a few threads with some info and some knowledgeable people @Sowelu @David Abrams that may be able to help

Apple Explains How to Custom Calibrate the New MacBook Pro Displays

In a new support document, Apple has detailed how to measure and fine-tune the calibration of the display on the new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro...

www.macrumors.com

Can't calibrate new XDR MacBook Pro display - missing 'Color' button, calibration option.

So I just received my 14" M1 Max MacBook Pro and the first thing I like to do when I get a new Mac is to calibrate the display (they all skew very green to my eyes with the default factory color profile). But, I do not see an option for this as I do on my other Macs. I am not sure if this is due...

forums.macrumors.com