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Inconsistent color display on external monitors, Photoshop v 22.1.1 and Bridge v 11.0.1, Mac

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
February 4, 2021
9 replies
6710 views

I'm having serious color management issues in Photoshop v 22.1.1 on a MacBook Pro. Specifically, when working on a color image on an external monitor, the colors of the image will suddenly and unexpectedly shift. Also, colors will be inconsistent within the app. For example, the image I'm working on will appear one way, yet in a sub-window – like the Navigator – the color will appear differently. By far and away the easiest way to replicate the problem is to simply open a color image on an external monitor and then just resize Photoshop's window within the screen. Suddenly the colors will jump. Adobe Bridge 11.0.1 also exhibits inconsistent color handling, showing one set of colors in thumbnails and another in the Preview pane.

I have tested this problem and replicated it on two laptops - both older 15" MacBook Pros (one Retina 2012, one Retina 2013) with Nvidia GPUs, both with 16GB RAM. I have replicated the problem on both Mojave and Catalina. I have replicated the problem across two different high end color critical external monitors, one an NEC PA272W, the other a brand new Dell UP3017 (both connected via miniDP). I have replicated the problem both with and without color management (it occurs even after doing a factory reset on the monitors and deleting all monitor icc files). I replicated the problem using an external SSD that I loaded a fresh install of Catalina on and on which I only otherwise installed the latest versions of Photoshop and Bridge (I booted off this external SSD via Thunderbolt 1).

Any help would be *massively* appreciated. I'm basically stopped cold in my work because of this.

This topic has been closed for replies.

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

I wonder if this is predominantly an issue on M1 chip macs and dual displays?

It seems that Apple have 'changed' the display sensing/ display description on those Macs to show displays as "unknown", internally rather than by name.

I was speaking to the developer of basICColor display 6 software about this today and he came across the issue, for which he has had to develop a workaround. Of course it's been reported to Apple but as their "issue with LUT type ICC profiles" has been around since OSX 10.12 and much reported, maybe a fix will not happen anytime soon.

If anyone would like to test display 6 on their mac which is showing this issue it would be great to have feedback: https://www.colourmanagement.net/products/basiccolor/basiccolor-display-software/

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

D

d-hobAuthor

Participating Frequently

According to Adobe tech support, the problem is with my GPU. I thought my system met the minimum requirements for Photoshop 22.0 and onwards (indeed it works fine with 22.0.1, just not beyond that), as it has 2GB of GPU memory split between the Nvidia graphics card and an integrated Intel card, but it sounds like it needs to be a 2GB minimum on just one card. Minimum requirements are posted here:

https://helpx.adobe.com/in/photoshop/system-requirements.html

So it looks like I'm stuck with version 22.0.1 and earlier until I can get a hardware upgrade.

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

It's had to know how insufficient graphics memory could cause a displayed image to flick between monitor display profiles in dual display situations on Mac.

I'm pretty sure that's what it's doing when appearance flashes between 2 looks, since setting both displays to use the same profile fixes the issue.

OK, d-hob, your video memory may be short on what's recommended, but I find it difficult to believe that it's the root of the issue, especially since Andrea had the same issue with plenty of memory available.

neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

Hi @NB, colourmanagement,

You're completely right. It's not a graphics card issue. I rolled everything back to Photoshop 2020 and Bridge 2020, both of which always worked fine in the past, and they're both still broken with regards to color management. Bridge 2020 shows the proper colors in the Preview pane but not in the thumbnails. Photoshop 2020 shows the proper colors with the image being worked on, but much to my horror I discovered that it's totally broken when printing. When designating the specific output profile to use, it just completely ignores it and prints what looks like sRGB. I hadn't realized that the printing was broken as well. This is beyond messed up.

I created a new account on my MacBook Pro and loaded Bridge 2020 and Photoshop 2020 on there, so as to avoid any issues of corrupt preference files, and they're both broken there as well, though oddly in a different way. In that new user account, Bridge 2020 now shows colors properly in the thumbnails but wildly off in the Preview pane (where the colors are hyper-saturated), and Photoshop 2020 is back to switching between different color profiles at random.

What started all this is a bit of a mystery, though it seemed to break when I updated Photoshop 2021 beyond 22.0.1 something like a month ago. Before that I never had any of these problems. Also, it's definitely an Adobe problem, as Affinity Photo 1.9.0 works perfectly (off topic, I don't see the printing problems you referred to in Affinity Photo – the software, not the printer, manages the color – but I don't want to stray too far off the issue at hand here).

I think it's legitimate for Adobe to dismiss my problems for the 2021 versions of Photoshop and Bridge based on my hardware limitations (since who knows what might be happening there), but not for the 2020 versions, as those have always worked until now. I'll be back on with their tech support in the next day or two and report back. I feel like if I'm going to suffer through this, they should too so that it can be logged as a legitimate problem.

Hi d-hob, How frustrating,

I've certainly not seen the printing issue you mention, that’s with Photoshop Manages Color I guess?Testing with a Mac based client this week, the printer profile worked fine.

Actually, though, on the "print" screen on my own Mac the image preview is way off. I'm sure I have video memory hardware limitations on my late 2012 MacMini.

neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management
[please only use the blue reply button at the top of the page, this maintains the original thread title and chronological order of posts]

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

You can report it as a bug here
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/categories/photoshop_family_photoshop

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management
[please only use the blue reply button at the top of the page, this maintains the original thread title and chronological order of posts]

D Fosse

Community Expert

Instead of posting a new thread there, I suggest you all add to tomekbu's thread. Don't fragment this into a number of one-post threads.

While I'm at it - there used to be a "+1" function in the feedback forum, where did that go? Anyone know how that works now? Just press like?

D

d-hobAuthor

Participating Frequently

Yes, done. Thanks!

D Fosse

Community Expert

That's right. The specific issue goes back at least to CS5, when I first came across it - that's ten years! But the frequency of cases seems to pick up now.

While not affected myself, it's extremely frustrating to have nothing to tell the users that are. None of the various proposed workarounds seem any use.

I would join tomekbu in urging everyone seeing this, to post in the feedback thread. Jeffrey Tranberry posted in that thread and promised to bring it to the attention of the color management team, but that's many weeks ago and nothing has been heard since. It would be nice to hear "we're aware of it and are working on it".

tomekbu

Participating Frequently

@d-hob There are lots users suffering from this problem. I have opened a thread at Adobe Photoshop Family with lots of examples. At the first post I store a summary there - what have been found/tested so far, as well as links to other threads - including yours - I do encourage to put there also your case:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/conversations/photoshop/unresolved-photoshop-2210-critical-problem-with-colours-hw-profiles-on-two-monitors/5fdcfc5b35994b51065c7190

A

Andrea5C80

Known Participant

Dear Tomekbu, thanks for your feedback. Do I understand it correctly: There is nothing to do but showing this as a bug to Adobe? Can I stop troubleshooting and just wait?

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

d-hob, you write: " Forcing the external monitor profile to that of the MacBook Pro screen profile does eliminate the problem. That's not a workable solultion, but the reverse would me for now – force the MacBook Pro screen to use the profile of the external monitor. (Seeing the results sure does make you appreciate proper color management.)"

Of course my recommendation is to temporarily use the MAIN display profile on both screens

So it seems that the application is flashing between the two display profiles on your system!

For sure setting one profile for both displays isn't an acceptable long term solution, but it does reveal a lot about what's actually happening.

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management
[please only use the blue reply button at the top of the page, this maintains the original thread title and chronological order of posts]

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

Just in case - have you tried resetting Photoshop?

resetting Photoshop preferences
Resetting restores Photoshop's internal preferences, which are saved when Photoshop closes. If they become corrupt then various issues can occur.

Here’s some info on how to do that:

https://t.co/ulJI7cGn1G
https://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/using/preferences.html

You may want to backup your settings and your custom presets,

brushes & actions before restoring Photoshop's preferences. Migrate presets, actions, and settings

It may even be time to reinstall Photoshop.

Use the Adobe CC cleaner tool to remove all traces first.
Uninstall photoshop BUT make sure to choose the option “Yes, remove app preference”.

Once that process finishes, start the installation process and look into the “Advanced Options”. Uncheck “Import previous settings and preferences” and choose to “Remove old versions”.

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2405286

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management
[please only use the blue reply button at the top of the page, this maintains the original thread title and chronological order of posts]

NB, colourmanagement

Community Expert

That reads as a very inconvenient distracting situation. How frustrating

I suggest that you report it as a bug here
https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/categories/photoshop_family_photoshop

Also - do recalibrate/profile the external display, if your display profile is corrupted it might be a part of this story

One more thing to try - once you have a good icc profile for the external display try temporarily setting that as the MacBook screen profile

Apparently the external display cable [and any adaptors in use] can also play a part in this

Please report back on how you get on.

I hope this helps
neil barstow, colourmanagement net :: adobe forum volunteer
google me "neil barstow colourmanagement" for lots of free articles on colour management
[please only use the blue reply button at the top of the page, this maintains the original thread title and chronological order of posts]

D

d-hobAuthor

Participating Frequently

Hi Niel and D Fosse,

Thank you for your feedback. I reported this as a bug, as suggested. I recalibrated both monitors multiple times with i1Profiler and an i1Display Pro Monitor Calibrator after first doing a factory reset on the monitors, and it made no difference. The cable is unlikely to be the problem, as I'm using two different cables on two different monitors, and the problem is consistent regardless of cable or monitor. Also, the problem only appeared within the last month or so, so I'm wondering if somehow a bug was introduced in the latest version of Photoshop.

Forcing the external monitor profile to that of the MacBook Pro screen profile does eliminate the problem. That's not a workable solultion, but the reverse would me for now – force the MacBook Pro screen to use the profile of the external monitor. (Seeing the results sure does make you appreciate proper color management.)

Thanks again. I appreciate your help.

A

Andrea5C80

Known Participant

Dear d-hob, kindly check my answer on the other thread that I repost here:

many thanks for your intervention, it feels nice not feeling completely alone on this issue. So far I did not find any other related thread.

You seem to have by far more experience than I do and also have investigate with both more HW and SW combinations. Just a couple of questions:
1. can we somehow make sure we are suffering the same issue? Did you check the link I posted with videos on Youtube reproducing my issue? You youd do the same maybe?
2. After all this troubleshooting, did you end up thinking it's a bug that Adobe or Apple (or both together need to solve?)

D Fosse

Community Expert

This is an issue that comes up from time to time, always in a laptop + external display configuration (or iMac + external, the point being that the machine has an integrated display).

What happens is that the wrong monitor profile is used. The application uses the profile for the integrated display even when the application is actually on the external display. Obviously, that shouldn't happen.

Which application is affected varies. Usually it's ACR, but it can be Lightroom, Bridge or Photoshop, or sometimes several or all of them.

There is a bug here somewhere, but it's hard to say where. It happens in both MacOS and Windows. There is at least one lengthy thread on the feedback forum (the official bug report channel), so far without any resolution. A number of workarounds have been proposed, and they sometimes work and sometimes don't.

I've been trying to collect some links, but haven't come around to it yet.

What makes this tricky is, of course, that most people never see this. It's just hard to reproduce.

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