Color management setup problem under Mac OSX

[Philippe B.]

First : THANK YOU to have supported OSX. I will now put my notebook WinXP in the garbage !!! I can use my MacPro !

When running PI 1.4  there is a color management error.

Color Management: PixInsight could not find a valid monitor profile.

and

PixInsight was unable to initialize the color management subsystem.
Color management functionality will not be available during this session
Some images may be rendered incorrectly.


After, when access to Edit menu, Color Management Setup, message is :
"Empty profile file path"
All color management function are disabled

Do I miss something ?
All my monitors have color management ICC profile



Do you plan to have 64 bits version for mac OSX ?

Thanks again

[Juan Conejero]

Hi,

Thanks!!! some comments like yours about PixInsight for the Mac are very much appreciated --we certainly have enough negative opinions for just a couple days <g>. We have put a lot of hard work and investment in this version.

Color Management: PixInsight could not find a valid monitor profile.

Be sure we'll find and fix this problem. Could you please tell me the following:

- The ICC profile currently assigned to your primary monitor.

- The contents of your /Library/ColorSync/Profiles folder.

Thank you.

[Philippe B.]

Hi

I have two monitors :
Main ICC profile is  DELL 2407WFP
2nd monitor has ACER P243W profile

Paths :

- The contents of your /Library/ColorSync/Profiles folder.

As I have french OSX there is 4 possible folders :

1) Bibliothèque/ColorSync/Profiles/
Lot of ICM and ICC profiles

2) Bibliothèque/ColorSync/Profiles/Displays/
Dell & acer icc profile (I think calibrated with a Spyder3)

3) Système/Bibliothèque/ColorSync/Profiles/
Only 5 generic and adobe1998 and sRGB icc

4) Utilisateur/PHB/Bibliothèque/ColorSync/Profiles
Only DELL 2407WFP and Acer P243W icc profiles

Seems PI doesn't see a folder path.

Hope it helps
Philippe

[Philippe B.]

hi
Any idea ? Do you want I make another test ?
All other function seem to work under OSX 10.5.5

best,
Philippe

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Philippe,

Yes, I think I've solved this problem. PI was not looking for profiles in the user's profiles directory. When the user has a calibrated monitor, the monitor's profile is stored in:

~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles

instead of:

/Library/ColorSync/Profiles

and here is the problem. Craig Stark (Nebulosity) has also confirmed the same problem, so I think I have it fixed now.

In a while I'll upload a new version (1.4.1) and I'll be glad if you can check it prior to an official release.

Thank you, I'll post a note here when it is ready for download.

[Philippe B.]

Hi Juan

Now I have not error message but when PIXINSIGHT is launched and if I go under COLOR MANAGEMENT menu, PI immediatly closes !!! Even if I have donne a reset of all parameters

 :cry:

[Philippe B.]

Hi
Just tried v1.4.2

All seems OK !!!! THANKS !!!! You are great  :wink:

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Philippe,

I am glad to hear that 8) Thank you very much for your patience with some newbie Mac developers  :lol:

[Philippe B.]

Hi Juan,
I am also newbie on Mac but I love it since 1 year. PI on Mac is for me a very good thing. Thank you very much. You are great.
I will continue to test it and let you know if there is some curious things.  
Regards

[Thorsten Lockert]

So I have an Eye-One Match 3 package that I used to create calibrated color profiles for my Mac. However, these color profiles causes the same kind of issue as noted previously in this thread, even when located in /Library/ColorSync/Profiles or ~/Library/ColorSync/Profiles.

Now, if I do a manual colorsync profile through the Displays control panel, this works just fine. So something with the profiles generated by Eye-One Match is not accepted by PixInsight 1.4.5.

One thing I noticed as missing from the Eye-One Match profile when comparing it to the system-generated ones is that the Eye-One Match profile does not have a record with tag/data 'mmod' to uniquely link up with the monitor -- I do not know if you require this?

If you would like a copy of a system profile as well as the output from Eye-One Match, let me know.

Thorsten

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Thorsten,

Welcome to PixInsight Forum.

One thing I noticed as missing from the Eye-One Match profile when comparing it to the system-generated ones is that the Eye-One Match profile does not have a record with tag/data 'mmod' to uniquely link up with the monitor -- I do not know if you require this?

Indeed that's the problem. Apple's ColorSync doesn't report a profile as being associated to a monitor if its mmod (MakeAndModel) tag doesn't identify it, even if the profile in question has been assigned to the monitor. When this happens, PixInsight is told that there is no ICC profile currently associated with the primary monitor, and hence it cannot start a valid color management environment. Other applications silently find their own workarounds to these situations, but PixInsight's philosophy is that you always have the control over your system, so you must be informed about things that aren't working as they should, instead of trying a shortcut that might not work properly.

OS X is strict regarding monitor profile assignment. Other OS's are much laxer; for example you can assign an arbitrary RGB profile to the primary monitor on Windows.

The only solution that I can figure out is that you edit your profile manually to enter a valid mmod tag value. I think the ColorSync application can do that.

[Thorsten Lockert]

OS X is strict regarding monitor profile assignment. Other OS's are much laxer; for example you can assign an arbitrary RGB profile to the primary monitor on Windows.

The only solution that I can figure out is that you edit your profile manually to enter a valid mmod tag value. I think the ColorSync application can do that.

It would, if it was just a question of modifying an existing mmod tag value... But the generated profiles do not have an mmod tag at all, and there is no way to add one.

And Gretag MacBeth Eye One Display 2 was supposed to be one of the better calibration tools out there... Oh well.

[Philippe B.]

Hi Juan

I installed snow leopard and I have reinstalled PI 1.5.7 but the error message "color management not found" 
I completly uninstalled PI (with CleanApp, with all setup ini files) and copy the .APP in the application folder (like usual) but same error !

Do you have an idea ?

Best regards
Philippe

[Philippe B.]

any idea ?
thanks !!!

[Juan Conejero]

Hi Philippe,

Sorry for the late answer. I am still in the process of installing and testing Snow Leopard, but I am confident this problem has nothing to do with OSX 10.6.

Are you using a hardware monitor calibration system? As we commented earlier in this thread, unfortunately some of these systems generate incorrect ICC profiles, and this is a common cause of problems.

Let's take a look at your monitor profile. Please do the following:

- Open your /Applications folder. Look for the ColorSync Utility application and launch it. It may be under the Utilities sub-folder.

- On ColorSync Utility, select the Devices section (top row of icons).

- Expand the Displays section on the left column, and select your primary monitor.

- On the right panel, you should see your monitor profile. Click the small Open button near the Current Profile entry, in order to open your current monitor profile.

- Let me know what says on the window that pops up. I am interested in the Header tag of your monitor profile (which is selected by default when you open the profile). For example, you can take a screenshot (Shift+Cmd+3) and post it here.

If your profile's class is not "Display", then we know what happens.

Sorry for the complex story, but OS X color management is really strict and this makes things worse when something fails. We'll spot the problem and solve it.