Colour Profile for LED 15" MacBook Pro (Gloss)

Hi all,

I have had the pleasure of switching to Apple MacBook Pro 15" (gloss) with the new LED backlight. One of things that concerned me before my purchase was, how good is the display? I am a photographer so it was very important for me. Some said, "same" and others say "brighter". How about the colour accuracy? Who really knows?

Now that I have one, I will offer you my opinions. In a nutshell. It is far better than my old HP nx7010 laptop (which looks dull now). Since not all of you would own a nx7010, that might be a limited help. So, I have attached a colour profile you can have a look ( http://www.savefile.com/files/821802). This was achieved with the brightness of the display set to the 3rd brightest... or make it full brightness and press [lower brightness] button twice (about 220 cd/m2... if that means anything to you). To achieve the colour temperature of 6,500K and Gamma 2.2 is pretty good in my book. After my previous experience with nx7010 (didn't come anywhere near it). I could not risk adjusting the colour on my laptop... it would come out VERY different. Now with MBPro, I am happy to adjust photographs on the road.

To me (human), the display brightness appear pretty even but my GretagMacBeth Eye-One Display 2 tells me otherwise. I am borrowing this analysis method from a notebook review site which reviewed displays as well... unfortunately I lost my link and I can not credit them for their ideas (if anyone think they have seen similar review methods as below, please post and I will credit them).

Anyway, the above mentioned site measures 9 spots (3 columns and 3 rows) on the display to test the even brightness of laptop displays. Also, I recall reading in one of their reviews that many laptop displays can rarely break the 200 cd/m2 in brightness.


At the brightest setting (in cd/m2) - centre of display is 345cd/m2
---------------------
| 353 | 335 | 311 |
|------|------|-----|
| 331 | 345 | 323 |
|------|------|-----|
| 302 | 392 | 401 |
---------------------


At the 2nd brightest setting (in cd/m2)
---------------------
| 280 | 266 | 247 |
|------|------|-----|
| 263 | 273 | 257 |
|------|------|-----|
| 240 | 310 | 318 |
---------------------


At the 3rd brightest setting (in cd/m2)
---------------------
| 223 | 211 | 196 |
|------|------|-----|
| 209 | 217 | 204 |
|------|------|-----|
| 190 | 246 | 252 |
---------------------


At the 4th brightest setting (in cd/m2)
---------------------
| 186 | 177 | 164 |
|------|------|-----|
| 174 | 182 | 171 |
|------|------|-----|
| 158 | 205 | 210 |
---------------------

So the LED back lit 15" display on MacBook Pros are VERY BRIGHT if you want to work that bright. Personally, I like around 3rd brightest to 4th brightest settings.

In terms of colour, I noticed that the MacBook Pro 15" LED display was too blue/cyan. I accept that no 2 displays are the same but as the difference is so dramatic, I have attached my icc colour profile, just in case someone might want to use it. It should bring the colour a lot closer to 'true' to life colours than leaving it default (remember to set your display to the 3rd brightest setting). You can download the icc file from http://www.savefile.com/files/821812.

I hope this helps someone out there!

 

ahh, yes! good, first hand, technical LED sceen info! many thanks for both the analysis and the colour profile!

 

nicely done, thank you. I guess you know though, that it would be best for everyone to do their own profile, since every display will be different. I use a Spyder from Colorvision, for instance. A friend has one and tons of friends always borrow it

Andy

 

I can't download yours and my Spyder2 produces crappy profiles, so I did one manually that seems far better than the Standard ones (and the crappy pink ones I get with ColorVision Spyder2!)

http://www-users.rwth-aachen.de/megajoule/temp/led_lcd_mbp_3_randfee.icc