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ColorSync and MacOS X: Settings
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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
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