Oversaturation Problem: Solved

[walter.sk]

While my "oversaturation problem" emerged in reference to profiling a digital projector, the particular solution may apply to color management in general, and quite shocked me because the problem came from an unexpected source: the nVidia Control Panel on a Windows 7 computer.  It suggests to me that even in a laptop with an "integrated" video controler other than nVidia, a similar problem might exist, so this is being posted here rather than in the forum designated for digital projectors.

I used a Colormunki to calibrate and profile an Epson PowerLite 730C projector, which had been successful over a couple of years, or at least, since we got the Colormunki.  This September, when we got a new laptop to use with the projector, everything seemed well oversaturated although the white balance and grayscale neutrality seemed fine, as did the dynamic range.  We had the projector set for sRGB color mode, with all other controls zeroed out; this would allow the computer color settings to control the color of the projector.

We used the Colormunki set for Native rather than D65.  In the Control Panel>Color Management dialogue we selected the Munki profile as default, and checked "Use My Settings For This Device."  In the Advanced tab, we left unchecked the "Use Windows display Calibration."  On test images and image files submitted to us as jpegs in sRGB, the oversaturation was really major.

Going to the Control Panel>nVidia Control Panel dialogue,  out of curiosity I selected "Adjust Desktop Color Settings."  There, under #2 was checked "Other Applications Control Color Settings."  So far, so good.  Under #3, "Apply the Following Settings" were "Digital Vibrance" (0 - 100) and Hue (0 - 100).  The Hue was set to 0, but the Digital Vibrance was at 79.  That seemed odd to me, so I moved the slider from 0 to 100, but did not observe any change in the test image preview.  However, its colors were completely saturated.  There were two other preview images, so I chose the 2nd, which has the famous babies and other real world colors in it.

Moving the Digital Vibrance slider now produced very noticeable changes in saturation!  On the laptop computer I set it at "0" (but on my desktop computer the correct setting is "50") and rebooted the projector and the computer, performed another Munki projector profiling at the Native WB setting, and, lo and behold, the profile was just about perfect.

I am shocked that even when I had selected "Other Applications Control Color Settings" in the nVidia software, that the Vibrance control was not shut off!  I found a similar pitfall with another laptop that used an Intel integrated display adapter.  I don't have the slightest idea how the Vibrance setting had been changed to "79" on my laptop, but that was the culprit.

I am posting this to help others who get otherwise unpredictable results after profiling a device.

[Peter_DL]

 
That’s a quite old thread here, dated 2010, but I’m currently shocked as well about the problem reported above, and which seems to be persistent with nVidia graphic card drivers (at least under Windows):

In a nutshell, the Digital Vibrance setting in the nVidia Control Panel does not get eliminated by monitor calibration & profiling.

For example, if the Digital Vibrance setting is screwed up to a high number, the image colors will still be oversaturated after monitor calibration & profiling (I’m using a Spyder5, but that might be irrelevant here). And, just to be clear, this refers to a color-managed environment like in Photoshop.

Back in 2010 the threadopener reported that he had solved the problem by setting the nVidia Digital Vibrance back to a correct setting. In my current case, with a Asus notebook, it would probably be the factory default setting = 50,

but this is exactly where I have doubts. I doubt that this Digital Vibrance is ever completely inactive, at whatever setting. The 50 setting leads to a normal saturation for less saturated colors, but high saturated colors in an image seem to come out undersaturated, even and in particular after calibration & profiling.

Any similar or different experiences around here ?

Peter

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