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

[Votec_Rider]

I realize the following problem with Lightroom V6.1.1 after migrating my MacBook Pro to Mac OS-X El Capitan:
MacBook Pro Retina is the Main Monitor and NEC MultiSync PA271W is the 2nd Monitor.
Both Monitors are calibrated using Xrite i1 Profiler and I verified that the correct ICC-Profiles are associated with the Monitors (Mac OS-X System Configuration space).
In the Library Module everything is fine, but when I switch to the Development Module, the image on the 2nd Monitor gets dull after some seconds. Stepping forward one image, the image on the 2nd Monitor brightens up and gets dull again after some seconds.

[rmeier01]

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

[Votec_Rider]

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

[rmeier01]

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

[rmeier01]

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

[rmeier01]

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

[Votec_Rider]

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

[Votec_Rider]

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

[simonsaith]

Can you confirm if you turn off the GPU acceleration in the Lightroom user preference dialog, will the renders of the two monitor becomes consistent again?

[Votec_Rider]

Hello Simon,

if I turn off the GPU Acceleration in the LR Preference dialog, the renders of both monitors become consistent and the image on both monitors gets dark/dull.

Kind regards, Klaus

[J453]

Hi Klaus, could I get a copy of the affected color profiles that exhibit this problem? Our QE would like to use them for testing and sussing out this issue with Apple.

[rmeier01]

Hi Jeffrey,

sure. Please drop me an e-mail with upload instruction and I'll provide (iMac and NEC PA 271W).

Klaus can do the same for his profiles.

Kind Regards, Roland

[rmeier01]

Hi Jeffrey,

I've uploaded the profiles to a public folder on Dropbox, this is the link:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4...

Please refer to the readme.txt file within profiles.zip, it describes how the profiles have been generated and which are triggering the problem we're discussing here.

Kind regards,

Roland

[simonsaith]

Thanks. We've reported the issue to Apple and working with them to find a solution.

[Sebastian_Pani]

Hello!

(Excuse me for my bad english)

I have a similar problem, I used my Mac Book Pro connected to my second Dell 2209WA monitor smoothly, until I upgraded to El Capitan.
From there, working with the second monitor, it happens that after a few seconds the photographs taken on a different tone revealed Lightroom module (6), but not in the Library module. Also the program unexpectedly quits.

Any solution?

Thank you so much!

[simonsaith]

Unfortunaly, there is no quick fix since this depends on the Apple. In the meanwhile, you can build a matrix based display profile or a smaller LUT based display profile. It seems that El Capitan cannot handle 33x33x33 sized LUT display color profile. It seems to be able to handle smaller ones. But we haven't determined the actual threshold when it starts to break down.

[Sebastian_Pani]

We'll have to dip into ... and meanwhile expect the solution.

Thanks Simon!

[Sebastian_Pani]

We'll have to dip into ... and meanwhile expect the solution.

Thanks Simon!

[chrisg65756597]

Hey, I've been following this thread and I'm a little confused. Is this a general systemwide problem with display profiles in El Capitan, or is it pretty much limited to Lightroom 6 and (more or less) when using two monitors?

I'm wondering because I haven't upgraded to El Capitan yet and would hold off until this issue is fixed if need be. Also, I currently use an earlier version of Lightroom, would that be affected?

[simonsaith]

It affects all Lr 6.x versions. El Capitan does not seem to handle some large LUT based display color profiles correctly when rendering 16-bit images (which the default bit-depths that Lightroom uses internally).

[chrisg65756597]

Ah, so then I should be unaffected while using Lightroom 4. Great! Thank you Mr. Chen.

[simonsaith]

I did not verify Lr 4. In theory, it should be affected as well. Use caution to upgrade to El Capitan.

[chrisg65756597]

All right, I see what you mean. I misunderstood. I should have mentioned Lightroom 4 in my initial post. Thank you very much for your help. I will keep an eye on this thread for future updates.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

This seems still unfixed for OS X El Capitan 10.11.2 . Has anyone (I mean the Adobe folks :p) got updates from Apple?

Meanwhile, I use dispcalGUI to calibrate my monitor with Spyder4. Can anyone tell me how I can generate a lesser-sized LUT with it? much appreciated.

(In dispcalGUI's Profile Tab, even if I lower Profile Quality, I still see the issue at Lightroom with the resulting profile, and dispcalGUI's own profile information tool still indicates the resultant profile as "Color Look Up Table: Grid Steps: 33; Entries: 35937", so I believe I haven't succeeded at generating a smaller LUT profile).

I'm less interested in generating a matrix profile since for my monitor it gives terrible unnatural gray shades.

[rmeier01]

Disappointing of Apple, two updates and still not fixed. Keenly interested in this as well.

re dispcalGUI table profiles. I'm not using the tool (yet - It looks really promising!). I had a quick look and recommend to experiment with "Profile quality" (within the profiling tab).

From the online help: "Profile quality - Sets the level of effort and/or detail in the resulting profile. For table based profiles (LUT), it sets the main lookup table size, and hence quality in the resulting profile. For matrix profiles it sets the per channel curve detail level and fitting “effort”."

I found that the Apple CMS bug is related to profile size. Small table-based profiles ~26K, perhaps more are working. The larger ones (~100K+) trigger the bug. Of course this is a tradeoff but I'm getting sufficiently good results with the smaller ones.

But this is with a different profiling tool. Hopefully the method above will allow you to get them into the right range with dispcalGUI. Please keep us posted.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

No dice. Profiles resulting from changing the settings (there are only High, Medium, and Low btw) do not have any reflections in Lightroom's rendering. In terms of file size, High gives ~577KB .icc file, Medium ~352KB, Low ~321KB.

I do have discovered another option, "Enhance effective resolution of colorimetric PCS-to-device table" which seemingly allows me to change the LUT size, but only for XYZ LUT. And for dispcalGUI XYZ LUT has always to be generated along with a matrix profile...not sure if XYZ LUT is worth going with my amateur-grade Dell P2416D.