ColorSync and MacOS X: Settings
ColorSync and MacOS X: Settings
- Subject: ColorSync and MacOS X: Settings
- From: John Gnaegy <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 18:02:37 -0800
Q: On MacOS X in System Preferences there's a ColorSync pref and a
Displays pref, what's the difference?
A: The SystemPreferences-Displays-Color pane brings up a window on each
display with a list of profiles. Picking a profile here assigns the
profile to that display device. You can do the same thing and more
using ColorSync Utility.
Q: So I assign a profile to my display with the Displays pref. What's
the ColorSync pref for?
A: The SytemPreferences-ColorSync-Display popup lets the user select
which of the display devices is the preferred one, though under the hood
this boils down to the profile assigned to the preferred one. In this
popup you have one entry for each of your display devices, and an
"Other" entry for choosing a specific profile. The display entries are
the device names, not their assigned profiles. The setting of this
popup (meaning the profile of the chosen display device or the specific
profile chosen by "other") is returned when an app wants the system
profile. So if you're wondering where the system profile went, here it
is.
Choose your favorite display here, then to change its profile use the
Displays-Color tab. The new profile will be assigned to your display
device, and since that display is your preferred display, it will be
returned to any app wanting to know the system profile. You don't have
to change both prefs, just set the ColorSync-Displays popup once and
change the Displays-Color tab as often as you like.
Holding the cursor over one of the ColorSync popups brings up help text
showing the name of the device and the path to its profile, or simply
the path to a specific profile. This can help you determine if the
current setting is a device or a specific profile.
Q: I only have one display, what should I do?
A: By default everything is set so that your preferred display is your
single existing display, and your display's profile is the profile
created when the display device was generated when you booted the
machine. So really you don't have to change anything. If you want to
create a new profile for your display or change the display's profile
just use the Displays-Color pref.
Q: With all this talk of devices, why is there an "other" entry in the
ColorSync-Displays popup?
A: If you really want to, you can set a specific profile here.
Remember that this is the value returned to any app wanting to know the
system profile. So if you wanted a system profile setting different
from your display's profile, you'd use the "other" entry. But most
likely you wouldn't have a need for that.
Q: So there's a profile for each display, and a system profile which is
usually one of the display profiles. Which setting gets used by which
apps?
A: If you're curious you can tweak the ColorSync-Displays pref and the
Displays-Color pref (now that you're fully informed about what's what)
and see which profile the app thinks it's using. As far as Cocoa apps
are concerned currently there's only the preferred display device's
profile, aka the system profile. For most users, having one display and
not tweaking anything, this is the same as the display's profile because
of the inheritance of the Displays setting into the ColorSync setting.
Q: Why does it look like my display has three names?
A: It has a device name, a profile name, and a profile filename. For
example, my display "Apple Studio Display" has an assigned profile with
a description string "myCalProfile", and the profile is stored on disk
as "myCalProfile.icc". The display device will always be named "Apple
Studio Display", but the name of its assigned profile will vary
depending on what profile is assigned to it.
When you hook up an Apple Studio Display a profile is automatically
created based on info stored in the monitor itself. The generated
display profile is stored on disk in the
"/System/Library/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/" folder, and is assigned
to the newly created display device. After that any other display
profile may be assigned to the device using the
SystemPreferences-Displays-Color pane.
---
John Gnaegy
email@hidden
colorsync
_______________________________________________
colorsync-users mailing list | email@hidden
Help/Unsubscribe/Archives:
http://www.lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/colorsync-users
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.