P: 2nd Monitor image dullness after migrating to MacOS 10.11 El Capitan (profile issue)

Hello Roland, Adobe Team,

another piece of information on this topic:
When using the large size ICC-Profiles for both of my monitors, only on the 2nd monitor they're not handled correctly and the image darkens after some seconds when in the Development Module.

So in my case with:
___MacBook Pro Retina_____NEC PA271W
====================================
........LR Main Window................2nd Monitor
.............2nd Monitor...............LR Main Window

Image display in the 'LR Main Window' is alway correct and on the '2nd Monitor' is always to dark/dull in both of the above setups.

Again switching to the small size ICC-Profiles removes this problem completely.

Kind regards, Klaus

Hello Roland,

Thank you very much for your extensive work to debug this issue and find a work around.

I can confirm your findings. Both of my Monitors are calibrated with Xrite i1Profiler and based on large table for High Quality and are roughly 1.3MB in size. The corresponding Mac OS generated files during the upgrade process are for Normal Quality and roughly 3kB in size.
If I change to the smaller size profiles everything works fine in Lightroom, so it kind of seems to indicate that El Capitan has a problem to handle the large profiles (which hasn't been a problem in all the other Mac OS versions before.

Kind regards, Klaus

Since upgrading to OSX El Capitan, I've noticed that within the development module, thumbnails (in the filmstrip) and photos displayed in fullscreen mode appear much darker. When in normal edit view (entire photo ore zoomed), rendering is as expected.

The issue can be triggered by navigating through the filmstrip in Develop; when stepping left or right, the highlighted thumbnail is rendered darker within 1-2s while the full / zoomed view remains correct. Flipping between Develop and Library (via G/D short cuts) changes the highlighted thumbnail from dark (Develop) to correct (Library) back and forth.

Other modules (e.g. Library or Slideshow) work as correctly.

Clearly Lightroom worked correctly before the upgrade so this is likely and OSX issue but it only shows up under these specific circumstances.

Regards,

Roland Meier

Hello Klaus,

the theory worked out. Kind off. It seems El Capitan's current colour management implementation has a problem with large, table based profiles. Eg those produced with Xrite's i1profiler tool (~1.3 MB). Those worked fine in every single OSX release since at least 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

Using the calibration tool but creating matrix-based profiles leads to success. Lightroom Develop works as expected - no dull/dark rendering issue with 1 or 2 monitors, fullscreen display both with/without GPU acceleration.

I had equal success with matrix-based profiles created in i1profiler (tiny) and table-based profiles created by NEC's SpectraView Profiler (OEM version of basicColor display). Those table-based profiles are much smaller than Xrite's - about 10-20% of the size.

Where does this leave us - it looks like Apple broke compatibility but we have a workaround at least. But need to find a way for Apple / Adobe / Xrite to track this down in collaboration. Let's see if we get a response from Adobe on this thread, they have much better chances to take this forward with there partners.

Let me of if this helps in resolving your issue.

Kind regards,

Roland

Hello Klaus,

I did further testing and noted that this is somehow related to the colour management profiles associated with the displays. I couldn't reproduce it on my MBP with El Capitan, regardless of single or dual monitor. The difference is that the MBP hasn't been calibrated yet. My iMac uses profiles generated by third-party profiling software.

Once I changed to the default OSX profiles generated during the upgrade (iMac; PA271W in my case too), Lightroom's develop module behaves correctly. Very strange indeed.

I will attempt to re-create the profiles on El Capitan; I created them on Yosemite (OSX 10.10).

Kind regards, Roland

Hello Roland,

I swapped the monitors, so made the NEC PA271W the main and MacBook Pro the 2nd monitor and I do see the exact same behavior, just the other way round now.

What I can tell from this is that on the 2nd monitor images are rendered much darker/duller than the main monitor.

I can also reproduce the findings that you reported as "LR CC 2015.1.1 / OSX El Capitan (15A284) / Filmstrip & fullscreen views rendered much darker in Development module".

Kind regards, Klaus

Klaus,

our experience is quite similar, you're describing the same effect as I reported today as "LR CC 2015.1.1 / OSX El Capitan (15A284) / Filmstrip & fullscreen views rendered much darker in Development module". What is different is the condition (second screen). Just checked on my 2nd display and can reproduce your problem.

Have a look at my note and see if you reproduce as well.

Roland