What color profile for general Mac use?

Hardware
1

I’m a photographer, and I’ve made good progress setting up my fancy Eizo display with profiles for my specific printing papers and Epson 3330 printer.

However, these profiles designed for processing images in Lightroom and Photoshop for printing seem a little dull for general computer usage.

What should I use when I’m not editing photos? In my Mac’s display settings, there are a lot of choices for the color profile:

Apple RGB
Color LCD
Display
Display P3
sRGB

Or should I make something different with my Eizo’s ColorNavigator profile maker?

Thanks,
Russell

2

I would use the AppleRGB.
From my experience, it has a balanced setting for the daily usage of an computer.

3

Calibrate your Eizo monitor, building a profile for its unique characteristics that you can update as it ages.

The generic profiles supplied by macOS know nothing about your monitor’s ability to display color. Calibration measures your particular monitor’s output and builds a profile that will optimize the display of your image data in the same way paper and ink profiles optimize a print.

And then sit back and enjoy that gorgeous monitor. I envy you!

1 Like
4

Along the same lines-ish… is there a repository for official Apple Color Profiles available for download?

5

Apple’s color profiles would be installed with macOS. You can see what’s installed with the ColorSync Utility.

Paper manufacturers provide profiles for their papers printed with various ink sets.

6

I came across a guy on the photo.net forum (Andrew Rodney) who’s written books about this topic, and he recommended I set the Eizo profile to Adobe RGB, which the display can cover, and then set the macOS display to DCI-P3. I tried that, and although the shadow detail was amazing (in a darkened room, I could see the difference between zero and one luminance on the “Lab” numbers), everything looked a little flat.

So, I did a little research and learned that Display P3 is Apple’s version of DCI P-3, but with a D65 white balance. It did a good job of holding the shadow detail, but contrast was a little snappier. With that as a guide, I went into the Eizo ColorNavigator software and created a profile that came very close to Display P3.

ColorNavigator includes a menu bar item, which Bartender can access, so I made Keyboard Maestro macros that let me change the profile with Stream Deck buttons. With one press I can now have the display set up for very accurate photo editing or pleasant everyday computing. Very nice!

P.S. The Eizo was a good investment for me at about two grand. When a full ink set for my Epson 3880 costs $500-$600, I don’t want to do a lot of guessing about how the print is going to come out! The paper I use can also run about $4.00 a sheet. I use this Ezio CS 2740 display with an M1 MacBook Air in clamshell mode. I’ve been using it with Photoshop and Lightroom for over a year now, and have not felt any “slowness” at all.

Best,
Russell

3 Likes
7

I tried going down this rabbit hole but gave up when I found many profiles on my Mac with duplicate and similar profile names but different dates, paths, and contents. I’ll try again for understanding by exploring your link!

8

Yes, as a forum dedicated pro hotography, there are people there with a good amount of expertise —least more than I have!