Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPad Pro Screen Color
- Thread starter tonyau
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
It still looks yellowish.
But if you have no problems with how the screen is, especially, when you aren’t comparing then it is fine.
Looks normal to me, typical LCD vs. OLED difference when photographed.
I just discovered that what looks the same to my eyes and what a camera sensor might see are two different things. I just got a calibrator for my MBP’s monitor and adjusted the M4 iPad using the accessibility color filter option to get the two screens to look pretty much the same. When I pulled out a mirrorless camera and took a photo, they didn’t look the same at all. When I got the two to look the same in the photo, they looked different to my eyes. So photographing OLED and LED can be problematic. It was very strange.
Have you tried to calibrate the ipad with your calibrator and then use the x and y white balance values in settings>display & brightness>advanced>reference mode? Im not sure about the MBP but you may have the same options under ’Display’. Here is a video that demonstrates this:
Cool! I didn’t know you could do this - I’ll try it. While I’ve had a calibrator before, I didn’t know I could use the iPad as a second monitor - somehow I missed all of that when Apple added the feature.
I do know that when I did the basic calibration on the MBP this afternoon, the software didn’t want me to have the extended monitor option turned on, but that was for calibration. This is something different and I’ll try it tomorrow morning (too late for me to get involved with something like this).
I just bought the same one that was used in this video, so yes, I do have hopes this will work.
I do know that when I did the basic calibration on the MBP this afternoon, the software didn’t want me to have the extended monitor option turned on, but that was for calibration. This is something different and I’ll try it tomorrow morning (too late for me to get involved with something like this).
I just bought the same one that was used in this video, so yes, I do have hopes this will work.
That’s because cameras (as well as human eyes) don’t “see” all light frequencies equally well, they have sensitivity curves centered on three red/green/blue primaries. Similarly, OLED displays have relatively narrow RGB spectra, whereas with LCD the spectrum is wider due to their white backlight. So the color perceived by the camera varies, roughly speaking, depending on how the display’s spectral curves matches the camera’s sensitivity curves. Physically, light color has infinite dimensions (all the different frequencies), but we compress that color space into just three dimensions (RGB primaries), and that creates variations.
This is also the case with calibrators, by the way. They have internal translation curves for different panel types, and if the actual panel differs too much, the calibration can be inaccurate.
Just tried this and it did make a difference. I noticed the monitor change as soon as I put in the fine tuning values. It’s as close as I could get using the color filters under accessibility, maybe a little better, and a whole lot less fine-tuning. I’m pretty happy with the set-up now, though I still see a very slight difference between the MBP and the iPad as far as some colors. The greys look pretty much the same, so it will work with me. It’s been a very interesting exercise and I’ve learned a lot about monitors. I ended up using the same x and y values for the target number that were indicated in the video - I tried to find them online, but found a whole lot of information that I’m totally clueless about instead (photography is a hobby, not a profession).
Thanks for the explanation - as someone who had cataract surgery, I have a reasonable idea of what you are talking about (colors look a lot different on an uncorrected eye than the corrected eye).
I use my iPad for some evening zoom meetings and my lighting is LED on a dimmer. With the older iPad I found I had to turn the dimmer all the way up to get rid of weird flickering - the iPad’s camera and the LED frequency were off. I found yesterday that the new iPad camera is not as sensitive to the frequency/variation of the dimmer lights.
The one thing I’m noticing tonight is that while I have reference mode turned on, there’s no way to dim the display. I took the readings when it was pretty light inside and now that I’m in a dark room, I think it’s a bit bright. I’d have to turn off reference mode in order to change the brightness.
I don’t know if turning it off, so I could dim the monitor would mean that I have to re-input the settings again when I turn it back on. Not a surprise now the I think about it, but I hadn’t considered it when I set it up. It’s not all that difficult to take the measurement and input the values, but it’s just one more thing and I’d prefer to not have to do it every time. Do you know if the ipad will maintain the input values once you turn off the reference mode?
I did some photo editing this afternoon using Lightroom’s second display feature - the controls were on the iPad and the photo was on the computer - no problems with the two screens. Count me as a happy camper now.
Edited to add: I played around turning reference mode off and on - it does hold the values, including the brightness that I set. So if I turn it off, I can dim the display, and if I turn it back on, it will restore the values I had input earlier. That’s awesome!
Last edited:
i got my iPad Pro 13 inch on Friday and was really looking forward to it. As I usually do compared it to my M1 12.9 inch Pro and to me the screen was just too yellow, it was almost like True Tone was on even when it was off. Then if i did turn True Tone on it looked like I had a weak night shift enabled, real shame. I even compared it to my 15 pro max thinking it was just an OLED thing but no the iPhones screen was pretty similar to the 12.9 iPad Pro. Even an 11 inch M1 iPad Pro had a better screen imo. I’ve returned it and going to wait a few months until I try it again.
It's becoming clear that Apple is shipping some MacBook Pro M4 displays which have a warm white balance. Mine was not but I measured it with with and without True Tone enabled and this was the result.
Interesting to compare readings. I didn’t do one with True Tone active, only with the default settings. True tone looked lousy and I was interested in setting the white point.
I had the display brighter than yours. White point is different, warmer than yours. I measured it at two different times and the figures were slightly different - do OLED screens sort-of shift as they are on, or something?
These are the default recommendation: https://calibrite.com/. You’ll need at least the Plus version if you want to go above 1000 nits.
If you only want to measure color temperature, the Opple Light Master iii might do the trick, if you can find it ($30–40).
Last edited:
I think they do depending on the light. My 13" was yellow no matter, my 11" that matches my 15 Pro Max can go from cool white to warm white depending on the environment.
Okay, I never experienced this with OLED screens, and also have not seen this with my M4. Of course the color can appear different depending on environment (the purpose of True Tone is to counteract this), but that doesn’t mean the actual color changes. That would defeat the ability to calibrate displays.
I watched our planet 2 on Netflix on my lg g3 Tv under cinema mode, my 11 inch oled nano iPad and 12.9 mini led iPad for 20 mins. On Netflix, the colors are much more similar but the oled iPad is still warmer and the miniled iPad is closer to the lg. the difference is not as big when I compare static stuff find the oled iPad colors more pleasing when comparing side by side. True Tone turned on for both iPad
Interesting - Your reading with a Luminance near 100 and White Point near 6500 seems ideal. How frustrating that all the new displays aren't shipping with this white point. Would be nice if Apple would comment on this.
I think Apple may have to address this eventually. From what people are writing here, it sounds like there are a lot of them being returned (with photos posted here that look pretty bad). My assumption is that they will do an investigation before they make any type of statement - no point in saying that they have a problem if they aren’t yet sure what caused it and whether they have a real solution, so I don’t expect one any time soon. I’m just glad that I was traveling on launch day because I probably would have pre-ordered. As it was, I went into the Apple Store having read of the issues and was able to check mine out closely before I left with it.
Personally, I think it would be awesome if I could calibrate the display like I can my MBP, especially since I now own a calibrator (I bought a Calibrite Display Pro).
Personally, I think it would be awesome if I could calibrate the display like I can my MBP, especially since I now own a calibrator (I bought a Calibrite Display Pro).
These threads pop up every year and every year they are a huge nothing-burger.