Issue with colour rendering in PS 22.3 due to Graphics Processor issue ?

[DominiekC]

Issue with Graphics Processor “on” in Advanced mode : washed out colours in PS compared to LR, colour saturation changes between normal and washed out when moving the window on the screen.

With the Graphics Processor “on” in Normal or Basic mode : always washed out colour in PS compared to LR, no impact when moving window on the screen.

With the Graphics Processor “off” : normal coloors (same as LR), but very slow performance (spot healing brush takes approx. a minute to fix a small spot), unable to use a pressure-sensitive Wacom tablet for brushes, no brush setting previews, …

So it seems that with PS v22.3 there is an issue with colour rendering when using the Graphics Processor.

Hardware & software versions :

- Late 2012 iMac 13.2 with Quad-Core Intel Core i7, 32 GB RAM

- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX with 2 GB VRAM (Metal Supported, feature set macOS GPUFamily1 v4)

- Dual screen : external Eizo display with the same resolution as the internal iMac display (2560 x 1440)

- macOS Catalina 10.15.7

- Lightroom Classic 10.2

- Photoshop 22.3

[DominiekC]

Additional information for trouble shooting (with Graphics Processor “on” in Advanced mode) : 

Adobe Photoshop Version: 22.3.0 20210302.r.49 660cd2e x64

Number of Launches: 21

Operating System: Mac OS 10.15.7

System architecture: Intel CPU Family:6, Model:10, Stepping:9 with MMX, SSE Integer, SSE FP, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4.1, SSE4.2, AVX, HyperThreading

Physical processor count: 4

Logical processor count: 8

Processor speed: 3400 MHz

Built-in memory: 32768 MB

Free memory: 19034 MB

Memory available to Photoshop: 29005 MB

Memory used by Photoshop: 70 %

SAM SDK Version: 2.0.0-main.363.5

ACP.local Status:

- SDK Version: 1.41.1.1

- Core Sync Status: Reachable and compatible

- Core Sync Running: 4.9.0.19

- Min Core Sync Required: 4.3.28.24

ACPL Cache Config:

- Time to Live: 5184000 seconds

- Max Size: 20480 MB

- Purge Percentage: 50%

- Threshold Percentage: 85%

- Purge Interval: 60 seconds

Live Edit Client SDK Version: 3.79.23

Presets Status:

- Brushes: 37 local / 0 synced

- Gradients: 450 local / 0 synced

- Patterns: 15 local / 0 synced

- Shapes: 54 local / 0 synced

- Styles: 21 local / 0 synced

- Swatches: 122 local / 0 synced

Native GPU: Enabled.

Manta Canvas: Enabled.

Alias Layers: Disabled.

Modifier Palette: Disabled.

Highbeam: Enabled.

Touch Bar Property Feedback: Enabled.

Image tile size: 1024K

Image cache levels: 4

Font Preview: Medium

TextComposer: Latin

------- GetVideoCardInformation
SufficientVideoMemForTextures: True.

DoesGPUSupportFeature( kGPUFeature_All 😞 True.

PSGLDocDrawingOSVersionTest: True.

IgnoreVideoMemRequirements: False.

NativeGPUAvailable: True.

OpenCLGPUAvailable: True.

OpenGLGPUAvailable: True.

GetAIFSharingContext: True.

SupportsOpenGL(): True.

gPreferences.GetPhotoshopCrashed(): False.

gpuE (disallowOpenGLWindows): False.

Display: 1 Main Display

Display Bounds: top=0, left=0, bottom=1440, right=2560

Display: 2

Display Bounds: top=0, left=2560, bottom=1440, right=5120

OpenGL Drawing: Enabled.

OpenGL Allow Old GPUs: Not Detected.

OpenGL Drawing Mode: Advanced

OpenGL Allow Normal Mode: True.

OpenGL Allow Advanced Mode: True.

Tester="Photoshop"
snifferStart="2021-04-04_22:51:58"
AIFCoreInitialized=1
AIFOGLInitialized=1
OGLContextCreated=1
NumGLGPUs=1
glgpu[0].GLVersion="2.1"
glgpu[0].IsIntegratedGLGPU=0
glgpu[0].GLMemoryMB=2048
glgpu[0].GLName="16918308"
glgpu[0].GLVendor="NVIDIA"
glgpu[0].GLRenderer="16918308"
glgpu[0].HasGLNPOTSupport=1
glgpu[0].CanCompileProgramGLSL=1
glgpu[0].GLFrameBufferOK=1
glgpu[0].GLIsPreferred=1
NumCLGPUs=1
clgpu[0].CLPlatformVersion="OpenCL 1.2 (Jan 5 2021 23:17:05)"
clgpu[0].CLDeviceVersion="1.2"
clgpu[0].IsIntegratedCLGPU=0
clgpu[0].CLMemoryMB=2147
clgpu[0].CLName="GeForce GTX 680MX"
clgpu[0].CLVendor="NVIDIA"
clgpu[0].CUDASupported=0
clgpu[0].CLIsPreferred=1
clgpu[0].CLBandwidth=1.200000e+10
clgpu[0].CLCompute=102.629954
clgpu[0].CLRawDeviceName=GeForce GTX 680MX
clgpu[0].CLRawDeviceVendor=NVIDIA
clgpu[0].CLRawPlatformName=Apple
clgpu[0].CLRawPlatformVendor=Apple
NumNativeGPUs=1
nativegpu[0].NativeName="NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX"
nativegpu[0].NativeTotalRAMInMB=2147
nativegpu[0].NativeVRAMInMB=2147
nativegpu[0].NativeSharedSystemRAMInMB=0
nativegpu[0].NativeDedicatedSystemRAMInMB=0
nativegpu[0].NativeVendor="NVIDIA"
nativegpu[0].NativePowerEnvelope="DISCRETE"
nativegpu[0].NativeDeviceAttachment="EMBEDDED"
nativegpu[0].NativeAPIVersion="1.0 (1.0)"
nativegpu[0].NativeIsPreferred=1
snifferEnd="2021-04-04_22:51:58"
------- GetVideoCardInformation
$$$/LE/SysInfo/LicenseType=License Type: $$$/CSerialNumber/LicenseTypeSubscription=Subscription^rSerial number: 96040734144775523521

GUIDBucket:Composite Core (enable_composite_core): on

Composite Core GPU (comp_core_gpu): off

Composite Core Threads (comp_core_threads): off

Composite Core UI (comp_core_ui): off

Document Graph (enable_doc_graph): off

Application folder: /Applications/Adobe Photoshop 2021/

Photoshop scratch has async I/O enabled

Scratch volume(s): Startup, 1,82T, 380,9G free

[DominiekC]

Update : I've found a work around for this issue.

By relocating the menu bar to the external Eizo display, and setting it as the new primary display in this way, the colours are no longer washed out in PS, they are the same as in LR, and the colour is also stable when moving the PS window on the external display.

So it seems that the issue is related to the colour rendering by the Graphics Processor on a secondary display, not on a primary display (although, moving windows from one display to another did not solve the problem when the iMac display was set as the primary display).

Very strange.  The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX with 2 GB VRAM should simultaneously support two external displays up to 2560 x 1600 via Thunderbolt ... I've only connected one at 2560 x 1440 ...

[D Fosse]

Yes, you've bumped into an issue that has hit quite a few users with iMac/MBP + external display recently.

What actually happens is that the wrong monitor profile is used. The workaround you found is probably the best way to deal with it for now.

What all these cases have in common is systems with an integrated display. So everything points to how displays are assigned in the OS/video card. As such it's apparently an Apple bug and Apple need to fix it. It has never been reported from desktop systems with multiple connected displays.