I don't suppose you could send me the settings you're using to get the PA32UCX to play ball with MacOS HDR, please? I unboxed mine yesterday, but am really struggling to get HDR looking anything other than rubbish.
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.
Washed-out colours in the macOS Interface When Enabling HDR
- Thread starter JippaLippa
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Tested this with LG C3 TV - LG TV shows that Mac is sending SDR even when HDR is selected in MacOS. Suspect it is either a bug in MacOS Catalina as it is not actually sending HDR signal. When I try the same thing on M2 Mac Studio it shows HDR is sent from Mac Studio. Cable is HDMI 2.1 have RX 580 video card.
Not sure about Mac, but I just discovered that the same happens to macbooks and if you close MacBook and use only the external screen, the HDR works like a charm.
HDR may be trying to balance the colors from the retina screen with the actual external one in this case.
HDR may be trying to balance the colors from the retina screen with the actual external one in this case.
I didn't see your message until now. I came back to this thread to report something.
Under Image>Input Range> - try "auto".
Under ProArtPalette>Color>Gain - set all to 100.
The combination of these two settings make the PA32UCX look correct to me on HDR on Mac. You may find that only the Input Range setting is necessary, I haven't tried it alone.
No worries, thanks for the info!
Having spent some time, I've just gotten used to only enabling HDR to watch films. Iina playback isn't washed out at all, and looks incredible with good quality HDR content.
While I could just get used to the desktop colours, I find it very bloomy on my preferred dark mode themes on various websites, so stick to SDR most of the time.
There's also a 'Toggle HDR' button in a toolbar menu with BetterDisplay, so I haven't got to dig through settings each time. It'd be nice to have the best of both like the XDR displays, but I can live with toggling, as I don't watch HDR movies/TV all that often.
I wouldn't use HDR if I had to switch it on and off, including switching my main display between Windows and Mac. I'm way too lazy for that. The bloom, yeah I wouldn't use a mini-LED with a dark theme probably.
After reading this thread I took a look at the settings options on my DIY home-built iMac 27" 5K monitor - which has an iMac Pro 27" screen driven by an R1811 driver board sold by the Chinese specifically to work with an iMac or LG Ultrafine 5K screen.
This drives the iMac Pro screen exactly as one would hope for, producing a gorgeous display for my Mac mini M1.
As expected, enabling HDR in Display Settings on the Mac produces the washed out screen.
But buried in the R1811's internal settings menu (under Advanced) is an HDR - Off/Auto/HDR toggle (for HDR10).
Which I've just set to Auto and tested with YouTube, and it works amazingly!!
The Mac HDR button has to be unchecked (setting it on produces a doubled/garish effect), so the monitor driver board is handling the HDR detection.
One of the Chinese specs of the R1811 I had read says the HDR10 setting only works with 4K, not 5K, and the colour accuracy is probably somewhat inaccurate, but all the R1811's menu settings all still function and I can definitely get a good-enough picture to watch the YT movies.
And all the desktop colour settings for normal windows/wallpaper etc look as usual.
Very impressive.
This drives the iMac Pro screen exactly as one would hope for, producing a gorgeous display for my Mac mini M1.
As expected, enabling HDR in Display Settings on the Mac produces the washed out screen.
But buried in the R1811's internal settings menu (under Advanced) is an HDR - Off/Auto/HDR toggle (for HDR10).
Which I've just set to Auto and tested with YouTube, and it works amazingly!!
The Mac HDR button has to be unchecked (setting it on produces a doubled/garish effect), so the monitor driver board is handling the HDR detection.
One of the Chinese specs of the R1811 I had read says the HDR10 setting only works with 4K, not 5K, and the colour accuracy is probably somewhat inaccurate, but all the R1811's menu settings all still function and I can definitely get a good-enough picture to watch the YT movies.
And all the desktop colour settings for normal windows/wallpaper etc look as usual.
Very impressive.
Last edited:
If the Mac is set to HDR "off" in HDR display settings, the display will never be sent HDR. AFAIK and from everything I understand, the fact that a YouTube video may have HDR will have no effect on the Mac or on the display unless the Mac is set to HDR on.After reading this thread I took a look at the settings options on my DIY home-built iMac 27" 5K monitor - which has an iMac Pro 27" screen driven by an R1811 driver board sold by the Chinese specifically to work with an iMac or LG Ultrafine 5K screen.
This drives the iMac Pro screen exactly as one would hope for, producing a gorgeous display for my Mac mini M1.
As expected, enabling HDR in Display Settings on the Mac produces the washed out screen.
But buried in the R1811's internal settings menu (under Advanced) is an HDR - Off/Auto/HDR toggle (for HDR10).
Which I've just set to Auto and tested with YouTube, and it works amazingly!!
The Mac HDR button has to be unchecked (setting it on produces a doubled/garish effect), so the monitor driver board is handling the HDR detection.
One of the Chinese specs of the R1811 I had read says the HDR10 setting only works with 4K, not 5K, and the colour accuracy is probably somewhat inaccurate, but all the R1811's menu settings all still function and I can definitely get a good-enough picture to watch the YT movies.
And all the desktop colour settings for normal windows/wallpaper etc look as usual.
Very impressive.
For me, with HDR set to on in Mac settings, and the display properly set to adjust to the Mac's admittedly wonky color levels and the monitor set to HDR on as well (auto would be fine if the Mac is set to on), the desktop looks pretty much identical to the SDR desktop next to it (or a bit better, bit higher contrast) but playing a YouTube video even if not maximized has the correct dramatic effect of dark darks and very bright brights.
It is a distinctive and unmistakable effect. Note this will only work (currently) on mini-LED and OLED displays, or at the very least one with older pre-mini-LED FALD. A regular backlight cannot produce the HDR effect, least of all in a situation where it it just a small window on the screen like for an unmaximized youtube video.
And it will only work if your display is capable of adapting to the Mac's color output. macOS doesn't have the settings Windows does to adjust SDR balance (the appearance of SDR while HDR mode is active).
Really HDR should be on all the time. There's no reason it cannot be (except maybe for photo editing work in 10-bit color or that kind of thing). And what about when it is just in a small part of the screen like a youtube video?
Apple is slow to add such quality of life features especially if they are not relevant to their own hardware. HDR works properly on their displays, and on third party ones with the settings adjustments to handle the macOS color levels, so Apple probably sees little reason to spend the time providing support.
The list of features that macOS ought to have could go on for many many pages. I notice something like that all the time that seems like hey, that wouldn't take a lot of effort to add or fix. It's just not their style to add new features unfortunately. Guess it's confusing to users if something new shows up?
I have to say, going back and forth between Windows and Mac, and looking at SDR screens next to the HDR screen, it is 100% correct as of Sonoma 14.0 on a PA32UCX. Anything else is probably a defect/shortcoming of a given display. It's 110% correct. Given the proper settings in the monitor's OSD that is.
I have tried everything on this thread and you cannot convince me that MacOS handles HDR properly, I have a calibrated LG OLED so I know how HDR is supposed to look, the monitor produces great HDR through any other source (Smart TV, Playstation 5, etc.) but no combination of settings in the MacOS or TV settings produces can get the same quality out of MacOS / the signal is dim even though the TV recognizes it as an HDR signal and correctly flips to HDR mode. If you increase the gain of all the colors on the TV as someone suggested you are just making all the colors look less accurate.
Last edited:
Tried that and didn't work; you cannot "turn on" HDR on an LG TV, what you might be thinking of is the "HDR Effect" setting which makes the screen grainy and inaccurate.
Currently, the TV automatically switches to HDR when the Mac is set to it. The dazzingly bright "HDR" icon that appears in the top right corner lets me know the TV is definitely in the proper mode, but the Mac colors are still muted which means the problem must lie there since no other source shows these problems.
Last edited:
Right. I find it much better when it is selected either HDR effect or custom at the LG and turning HDR off at macOS.
I'd rather use sRGB Color Profile than native LG at macOS as well.
This is for regular desktop use and not to watch HDR content so there's that...
Correct... HDR uses 10 bit or more. Any panel using only 8 bit is not HDR at all. Even with all the processing trickery it is just SDR with cranked up contrast. It's kind of like the first generation LCD TV's 25 years ago. They claimed to display millions of colours, even the professional ones, but in reality the panels were only supporting 6 bit (some even less). Resulting in horrible banding and noisy dithering. Even the cheapest CRT monitors were unable look that bad.
In theory, an SDR picture should look exactly the same when shown on both an SDR monitor and an HDR monitor. Only an HDR picture will have the much brighter specular highlights on an HDR monitor. Unfortunately due to a mix of incorrect implementations of standards in monitors, OS, applications and technical limitations of the monitor itself, the results can vary a lot. Either a greyish display of SDR content or burned-out look of HDR content is possible. In Windows OS there's this "balance slider" to compensate the problem, but it doesn't solve it.
It's all about colour space and unfortunately few people are fully aware how to properly work with it. Many graphics artists I worked with still are flabbergasted every time when their work looks totally different when broadcasted on SD/HD/UHD television or when printed. Same with content creators that used SLR photo camera's for video. Just go over to the Adobe forums... countless posts about washed out colour results, always caused by incorrect colour space settings/conversions and/or incorrect calibrated monitors and/or bugs in software.
In most cases it is best to keep a monitor in SDR mode and if one really wants to watch/edit HDR content, use a secondary monitor specifically setup for HDR - preferably an OLED monitor, since LCD panels cannot reach the dynamic range and detail HDR needs.
I recently bought an LG 27" 1440p OLED with HDR but due to the WOLED sub-pixel layout, the text looks very strange on Windows with ClearType, going to give it a go on my Mac.
EDIT: Looks far better on the Mac but HDR is a mess anyways....
EDIT: Looks far better on the Mac but HDR is a mess anyways....
Last edited:
Still an issue on an M4 Mac mini in 2024.
I am having some success with having HDR on with better display, 12bit 4:2:2 profile protected setting and turning the screen brightness via BetterDisplay down to 85% brightness
Update: Using the Thunderbolt 4 USBC ports on the rear of the m4 Mac mini has drastically improved colour accuracy when HDR is switched on on the OS
I am having some success with having HDR on with better display, 12bit 4:2:2 profile protected setting and turning the screen brightness via BetterDisplay down to 85% brightness
Update: Using the Thunderbolt 4 USBC ports on the rear of the m4 Mac mini has drastically improved colour accuracy when HDR is switched on on the OS
Last edited: