No Color Profile showing up

[kmorefield]

I have a Dell XPS 15 with a 4k screen.  I can't seem to get a color profile to show up in PI.  I have downloaded the Adobe RGB profile and then done a calibration with that profile.  It could not get the monitor profile to show up with either.  I've attached a screen shot of what I'm seeing. 

I also have issues with the sub-screens like this color management screen, or Curves Transformation, etc.  where parts of the screen get black boxes until you move the screen of mouse over those areas.  And the grayed out drop boxes are showing a blue and white cross hatching pattern.  Possibly these issues are related?

Thanks for any ideas on this.

Kevin Morefield

[RickS]

I have a Dell XPS15 with 4K screen and my colour profiles work fine.  Have you looked at the Windows "advanced color management" settings to see whether everything there looks OK?  If you click the button to add a profile it should show you all the profiles installed on your system.

Cheers,
Rick.

[kmorefield]

Rick,

The color profile is working on the laptop.  For example, It works in Photoshop.  But Pixinsight seems to not recognize it.

Thanks,

Kevin

[RickS]

Hi Kevin,

I'm pretty sure that Photoshop does its own colour management, so just because it works doesn't guarantee that the Windows colour management stuff is OK.

Cheers,
Rick.

[kmorefield]

Thanks Rick.  I think my question here is "where does Pixinsight get the color profile that is uses".  I ask that because the one it is selecting is not the one that I use for my system default.  And in Pixinsight I cannot seem to change the color profile it is using.

Thanks,

Kevin

[RickS]

Hi Kevin,

PI uses the Windows colour profiles which is why I suggested looking at the Windows colour management settings.  In there you'll find a list of all the profiles that Windows knows about.  The profile files are in the folder: Windows\System32\spool\drivers\color

I have never heard of PI having a problem with the profiles on Windows before, so I think it's more likely a Windows issue than a PI bug.

Cheers,
Rick.

[kmorefield]

Thanks for your help Rick.  So, yes PI is selecting a profile from the list of profiles in that directory.  But the one it selects is not the one I have loaded as my chosen profile and set as the windows default.  There are 20 or so different profiles to choose from and I can't figure out how PI picks between those 20 or so choices. 

For example, I have selected AdobeRGB as my system default profile.  And that is suggested in PI comments I read somewhere.  But PI is selecting SHP1476_native_6500.icm.  Why?  I even reinstalled PI to see if that would help.

So I'm not sure what to look for.  Windows seems to be operating just fine. It uses the profile I have selected. 

The worst part is the unstable behavior of the sub windows.  It makes PI extremely difficult to use.  And I don't know for sure the color profile is the issue.  But I do know that PI is using the Video card.

[RickS]

Which profile are you trying to set, Kevin?  You should have the monitor profile matching your screen and a default profile set to some device independent colour space with a gamut that suits your needs (AdobeRGB is a fine choice.)  You set the monitor profile in System Settings and need to restart PI for it to take effect.

I don't know how PI picks the initial monitor profile but it has always picked one that made sense on my desktop and laptop computers.  After I recently decided to name the profile created by my monitor calibrator differently I had to go and manually update PI.

There have been some issues with Dell laptops and the current version of PI thought to be due to Qt incompatibilities with Dell bundled software and the touch screen, but none of the symptoms I read about seem similar to yours.  Might be worth trying some of the fixes that have been suggested anyway.  The next major release of PI should include an updated Qt library which should play better with high res touchscreens.

Here are some threads worth checking:
https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=10234.msg64618
https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=10638.msg66760
https://pixinsight.com/forum/index.php?topic=10343.msg65648

Cheers,
Rick.