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Michelle Paluski
Participating Frequently
April 10, 2019
Question

Gray/Greenish shadows on external monitor when using Lightroom/Photoshop

  • April 10, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 2277 views

Hello guys, hope you can help!

I have a MacBook Pro (13-inch, 2018) and just bought, this week, an external monitor (Benq sw2700pt) to improve my editing work. When I connected the monitor (HDMI/USB-c) I noticed a small difference in the colors between the two displays and decided to calibrate them. Each one of them was using their own native ICC profile and I used Spyder 5 Pro to generate a calibrated new one for each of them. Spyder automatic assigned the new ICC profile to them and the colors were fine until I opened Photoshop and Lightroom.

All my raw photos that have some dark areas are very weird on the BenQ monitor, looks like they have some kind of gray/greenish shadows. When a move the same Lightroom/Photoshop window to MBP everything looks fine.

I calibrated again, I reset the monitor, I change ICC profile, I turned off use graphics processor, true tone and night shift, and nothing worked =(

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    M
    Michelle PaluskiAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    April 10, 2019

    Hello Akash, thank for the quick reply,

    I am trying to take a photo of the screen (screenshots won't work in this case), but in the meantime, I've managed to narrow the issue, it only happens on color managed applications on the benq monitor.

    On all managed applications (Photoshop, Lightroom, Preview...) I can see the loss of resolution and the grey/greenish effect I mentioned in my original post. However, when the same applications are moved to my MBP they look normal.

    I was able to verify this by disabling color management on FastRawViewer on a photo on the Benq monitor, with the color management enabled I get the bad effect, but with it disabled it looks normal.

    I will attach a photo of the screen soon. 

    Thanks again

    M
    Michelle PaluskiAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    April 10, 2019

    I just took these two photos of the MBP and the Benq display, it is of the same image opened on lightroom 'two-mode display'.

    The first one is on MBP, and the second is on Benq

    D Fosse
    Community Expert
    D FosseCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    April 10, 2019

    The monitor profile is defective. That will only show up in color managed applications that actually use the profile, applications without color management just ignore it and are unaffected by a bad profile.

    You seem to confuse the monitor profile with the calibration loaded into the video card.

    • The calibration is a global adjustment to the monitor, affecting everything - but in very low precision.
    • The monitor profile doesn't adjust anything. It's a standard icc profile describing the monitor's response in its calibrated state. It is used by color managed apps in a standard profile conversion, and these recalculated numbers are sent to the monitor. This has much higher precision.

    This will show up in a screenshot. Make one from each display, and open them into Photoshop. Make sure the right display profile is assigned to each. MacOS should do this automatically, in Windows you need to assign it. Then convert both to sRGB, and post here.

    The screenshots have to be from a color managed app like Lightroom/Photoshop. Don't take screenshots from other apps.

    The reason for doing it this way, is that a screenshot has already been converted into monitor color space. The monitor profile is the right one to represent the numbers. If the profile is defective, it will show up here.

    Akash Sharma
    Akash Sharma
    Legend
    April 10, 2019

    Hi MichellePaluski,

    Sorry that Lightroom and Photoshop are showing your image shadows with a greenish tint when displayed on an external monitor.

    Would you mind sharing a screenshot here so our community experts can look into it?

    Could you please take a look at this discussion display calibration - Lightroom colour issue with secondary monitor - Photography Stack Exchange  and let us know if that helps?

    Thanks,

    Akash

    M
    Michelle PaluskiAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    April 10, 2019

    Thanks Akash, I've replied on the original post, the issue seems to be with color management, i've also attached some photos, I appreciate any help you can give me.

    Thanks !

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