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P: Photoshop 27.8 & later Rendering Artifacts, Exposed Previews and Color Banding

Forum|Forum|1 month ago
June 30, 2026
167 replies
889 views

Hello,

I have encountered what appears to be a GPU-related rendering bug when converting RGB images to CMYK in Photoshop.

System

Photoshop 27.8
macOS Tahoe 26.5.2
Mac Studio M2 Ultra
Apple Silicon GPU

Problem

Whenever GPU acceleration is enabled, converting an RGB image to CMYK produces severe black rendering artifacts across the image. The artifacts appear immediately after the color conversion and make the document unusable.

The issue occurs with multiple images and is fully reproducible on my system.

Steps to Reproduce

Open an RGB image.
Make sure Use Graphics Processor is enabled under Preferences > Performance.
Convert the document to CMYK (either Image > Mode > CMYK Color or Edit > Convert to Profile).
Large black artifacts appear throughout the image.

Expected Result

The RGB image should convert normally to CMYK without any visual corruption.

Actual Result

The converted image contains large black rendering artifacts that were not present in the original RGB document.

Workaround

Disabling Use Graphics Processor completely resolves the issue.

After restarting Photoshop with GPU acceleration disabled, the exact same RGB image converts to CMYK correctly with no artifacts.

Additional Information

The problem started recently. Earlier Photoshop versions on the same hardware did not show this behavior.
The issue does not appear to be related to a specific image.
Since disabling GPU acceleration immediately fixes the problem, this seems to be related to Photoshop's Metal GPU rendering pipeline rather than the color conversion itself.
I can provide the original RGB file, the corrupted CMYK result, screenshots, the GPU Compatibility Report, and the Photoshop System Information if needed.

Has anyone else experienced this issue on Apple Silicon Macs, particularly on an M2 Ultra?

Thank you.

Adobe PS Bug Report.txt

Pinned Reply By Erin26

An update on the two bugs mentioned in this thread:

Washed-out colors: The fix is included in the latest Photoshop release, PS 27.9.1.
Banding during RGB → CMYK conversion: The fix is available in the latest Photoshop Beta build 27.11.

Show previous replies

selondon

Community Expert

Using Command Y (Proof Colors) seems to be a workaround @Olaf Krackov

Or roll back to 27.8

D Fosse

Community Expert

@selondon

Proofing to Monitor RGB disables all color management for display. In other words, it doesn’t cure the fever, it just replaces the thermometer with one that doesn’t work. So to speak… ;-)

selondon

Community Expert

Ah yws @D Fosse

I don’t think this bug is related to the HDR one though? As it now seems to be merged with this thread..

selondon

Community Expert

I think it’s a Photoshop issue. Sine the 27.9 update on various Macs in our office we are seeing this opening RGB files (not using Adobe Camera Raw).

Olaf+Krackov

Participant

Just actually ran a test; the previous version works. Think it is an issue with the new version that was updated today, gone back to the older version in the meantime till fixed by Adobe.

Thanks for your help

Olaf+Krackov

Participant

When I opened my images this morning to start editing, I found that the image I imported from ACR (18.4.1) was overexposed when it opened in Adobe Photoshop (27.9.0); see the example below. This was strange, as all I had done was shut down the computer last night and reopen it. Last night I edited circa 30-40 images without an issue. Today, every file I opened is the same. I use a Mac Studio with Studio Display.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, as it is affecting my workflow.

H

Hjorthmedh

Known Participant

I reinstalled normal Photoshop (27.8.0) and same problem. If I disable GPU acceleration the BW images look fine, but then it is very SLOW. So I would like to keep GPU acceleration on.

Now I tried disabled precise HDR colour management in normal Photoshop. Had to turn that on in BETA to avoid the colour bug where everything looked washed out. Now turning the option off in normal Photoshop makes the images look ok.

Would be really interesting to hear what is going with the colour management in Photoshop, and if there is some way to avoid all these problems altogether?

D Fosse

Community Expert

There is a known bug with “Precise color management for HDR display”. So far it’s only been reported from the Mac version, giving various symptoms - but the fix is the same; uncheck it and relaunch Photoshop.

H

Hjorthmedh

Known Participant

Running latest Photoshop BETA (27.10.0).

Opening a black-and-white photo with gradients through CameraRAW. Banding is visible. Convert to RGB, banding disappears.

GPU acceleration is enabled, precise HDR colour management is enabled.

I had problems before when saving to JPEG, but that turned out to be the colour profile. Can’t use the wider colour profiles for 8-bit JPEG. Now the problem looks the same, but this time already inside photoshop.

Might go back to regular Photoshop again, but there were problems a while back there, which made me switch to BETA.

Jeff Arola

Community Expert

In Photoshop go to Photoshop Beta>Settings>Technology Previews, uncheck Precise color management for HDR display and restart Photoshop.

Red+Inspira

Participant

Buen día, he tenido un problema con mi programa ultimamente.

Solo me habia pasado una vez anteriormente, pero con las ultimas 2 actualizaciones del Photoshop Beta, los archivos tienen bug en el color cada vez que lo abro.

En la imagen 1, los colores del archivo se ven transparentes y apagados. El modo de vista del ajuste de prueba está en “Monitor RGB”, y al cambiarlo a cualquier otro modo y regresarlo a ese, el color se ve normal (imagen 2).

Este es un proceso que tengo que repetir con todos los archivos, y todas las veces que los abro.

Actualmente tengo la versión 27.10

Imagen 2. Vista normal del color en el mismo modo “Monitor RGB”

D Fosse

Community Expert

Known bug with the Mac Photoshop version. The forum is full of similar posts.

The fix is to check/uncheck “Precise color management for HDR display”. If checked, uncheck it; if unchecked, check it and uncheck again. Relaunch Photoshop when done.

Mr+Hahn

Participant

Initially I did as @TexMax did, went to Performance, and unchecked “Use Graphics Processor”. Now I tried turning it back on to use this fix @D Fosse posted and as expected the images I opened were washed out again after I enabled the GPU option.

On my machine, “Precise color management for HDR display” was already unchecked. So I did as instructed above, (check/uncheck “Precise color management for HDR display”. If checked, uncheck it; if unchecked, check it and uncheck again. Relaunch Photoshop when done.) and that didn’t fix it for me. I still had washed out images with the “Use Graphics Processor” option enabled after doing this.

So I checked the box for “Precise color management for HDR display”, left it checked on, hit ok, and restarted Photoshop again. This time I got normal images and it has remained normal after a few restarts of Photoshop with no issues. I can now send images from Lightroom to Photoshop, edit them normally, and save them back to Lightroom and they still look normal.

So for me, checking the box for “Precise color management for HDR display” and leaving it on has fixed my problem with with “Use Graphics Processor” box also checked on.

Weird that it’s kind of backwards for me. I’m on a Mac Studio with M4 Max and Photoshop 27.9.0

C

cody_cuellar

Adobe Employee

This is the correct fix until the next patch release goes out to CC.

Keep ‘precise color management for HDR display’ ENABLED when GPU is enabled. Make sure to restart Photoshop at least once after ENABLING the checkbox.

The name of this setting doesn’t really carry the meaning it once did when first introduced - it doesn’t really have anything to do with HDR, it’s more how we interact with the GPU on Apple devices, which now applies to all images, and not just HDR imagery like it once did. The next patch update released on CC will fix this though, so the bug won’t occur regardless of this setting.

T

TexMax

Participant

With GPU acceleration enabled ("Use Graphics Processor"), Photoshop's canvas displays images brighter than the actual pixel data. Confirmed by comparing the canvas to the layer thumbnail (which shows the correct, darker image) and to the same file opened in Preview.app and Camera Raw. Disabling GPU acceleration and restarting Photoshop fixes it — canvas then matches thumbnail/Preview.

Steps to reproduce:

Open a JPEG or ARW file (GPU acceleration on, default)
Compare canvas to layer thumbnail — canvas is visibly brighter
Photoshop > Settings > Performance > uncheck "Use Graphics Processor" > restart
Reopen file — canvas now matches thumbnail

Expected: canvas matches actual pixel data. Actual: GPU rendering over-brightens display only (underlying data is correct).

Likely related to a broader shared GPU rendering issue — other users report the same artifact in Premiere Pro and After Effects. See related (closed) thread: community.adobe.com/topic/show?tid=1409325&fid=729

System: MacBook Pro, M4 Max, 128GB RAM, macOS Sequoia 15.7.7, Photoshop 2026

D Fosse

Community Expert

This is a known bug in the Photoshop Mac version.

The fix is to check/uncheck the “Precise color management for HDR” box in Preferences > Technology Previews. If checked, uncheck it; if unchecked, check it and uncheck again. Then, important!, relaunch Photoshop.

A

anmafremo

Participant

War erfolgreich! Vielen Dank!

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