Dell XPS 15 9550 4K - Colours (An absolute mess!)

Hi guys,
I've had my 9550 for around 2 years now and I'm still yet to come to a suitable conclusion on how to fix the colours on this machine. I've even had Dell replace the screen because they couldn't come up with any other conclusion as to why I found them so bad, so I figured I'd ask you guys. I have spent some time researching the issue and know I'm not the only person with the problem but I'm yet to find a proper solution.

In 'Intel HD Graphics Control Panel' I can see that colours are set to Vivid, and I have no doubt this is partly causing the problem. However if I change to Natural colours, it throws all of the colours on the machine off (turns greys to VERY pink, etc). I have tried setting to Natural and calibrating and it fixed all of the colours apart from the greys (mostly the window colours within Windows itself.)

I'm sure most of you are aware of just how vivid the red colours etc are, and how wrong some of the colours are in general. So has ANYONE managed to fix it and make the computer display normal colours or are we just screwed?

Any help is hugely appreciated!

 

Have you had a go with using Dell's Premier Colour that comes pre-installed on the 4K models out of interest? This is the best method for altering the colour configuration in my opinion, and I wouldn't use the Intel graphics utility for anything like this as it's only a generic tool for this kind of thing.

Liam.

 

Hi Liam,
Thanks for your response.

I did have the Dell Premier Colour installed initially but found that made things even worse still! I could see when it loaded up and that it completely altered the colours.

I even went as far as to remove Intel's Graphics Utility software (although most of it still remains) and it just seemed to allow me to make less alterations into the app which is seemingly integrated into Dell (I could still open it, just couldn't make adjustments to most things.) What really frustrates me is that with the Intel program set to 'Vivid' this in itself is clearly making drastic changes since if I set that to natural at least the reds/oranges etc look normal, it's just the pink tinge throughout Windows that I can't deal with sadly!

 

I'd still refrain from using the Intel utility to alter to the colours, I steer well clear of it when it comes to colour accuracy in particular on a monitor. Also install the latest version of the drivers just to iron out any other issues that may be to do with the old drivers, the same goes for the Nvidia ones too.

Reinstall Dell's Premier Colour and give that another go, I think from memory when I had the 9550 4K version I had the program set to the "Vibrant" profile.

Liam.

 

Thanks Liam,
I'm currently away on a job for a couple of weeks (full time photographer, which is the main reason why I'm so frustrated by the colours!) but I'll definitely give this a shot when I get back.

Even when you had it set to Vibrant it didn't have ridiculously over-saturated red's and certain other colours?

 

No worries.

If I recall correctly the Vibrant profile for me offered the best overall viewing experience and the colours were outstanding, much more noticeable when compared to using the display without the premier colour program.

Liam.

 

I do graphic design and I do agree that the screen leans towards the reds, especially when set to AdobeRGB. I already have Dell Premiere color uninstalled, but I remember that the Vibrant Preset had everything looking very blue with the color temperature being set to something like 6500K, not sure though. I uninstalled it because I felt like it wasn't helping, and it was causing problems when I wanted to install other color profiles. I have also done a lot of searching for answers, but never found anything that was definite. There are a bunch of threads where people have calibrated the screen with decent results. But I recall reading somewhere ( I think it was in a dell forum, not sure ) that it's not possible to just restrict the color space of the screen and make the extra colors that we get with the screen to stop displaying, which in this case is the over saturated colors. But I cannot confirm this information, just from memory. If I come across that thread again, I'll post it here.

 

Hard to tell what's bugging you.
The FHD panel is just about 100% sRGB so there should be no issues with it.
The 4K UHD has wider gamut, hence oversaturated colors in non-color-managed programs. You can tame them by the applying sRGB in DPC. Or preferably use color-managed programs only.
Unfortunately there's plenty of possible issues. There seem to be some panels with warmer colors. There are lots of issues between BIOS and the Intel video driver, aside for flicker also black levels and maybe more. And DPC doesn't seem to work for all either.
You shouldn't set to vibrant.

 

For me the Premier Color app doesn't do anything. No matter what profile I select, colors are always extremely saturated. It's quite annoying as a graphic designer.

 

Everything is just fine and colors ~99% same as on mine DELL U2713H (fully calibrated adobe-rgb)
I set slider NATURAL-VIVID in intel's software to 75% for internal display to set white to the same level as external display. Everything just perfect

 

I'm curious, the people who do graphic design or whatever, shouldn't you be using a calibrator anyway? Regardless of the system/monitor you are using?

 

my colours were a mess until i uninstalled dell premier colour. couldn't fix it, turned out uninstalling corrected the issue si was having.

 

In case of DPC issues, to tame the oversaturated colours in non-colour-managed programs or with untagged content one can extract the sRGB 6500K profile from DPC's program folder and install & apply it in Windows Color Management. Google it up, it has been described.

 

I couldn't get on with Dell Premier Colour so I uninstalled it and instead reduced the saturation level to -20 in Intel HD Graphics Control Panel and left it set in vivid.

 

In my opinion it really depends. I feel like it's more beneficial for more controlled workflows where you're always printing with the same printer and paper types to give an example. In my case, I'm always working with different printers, surfaces and materials, so my work is never finalized on the screen. Which is why I don't feel like spending on a calibrator when in the end it won't be making much of a difference to my work flow, where the colors will still look different when a client opens a file on their computer or when the real material color does not match the screen. It's really simply because the way color is reproduced on a screen is different from how we see color in real world environments. I feel like calibrating just brings you closer in certain aspects of the work and I don't find it so cost efficient, yet. So for me, as long as the colors are not way off, it's fine.

But I agree with calibration, there is no loss to having a calibrated monitor, certainly better than not.

 

thanks man.. i was going mad with this over saturation thing in my xps 15. I did uninstall DPC and also reduced saturation level. Looks much better and natural now. Still, when i compare with my 2014 macbook air, i feel something is missing on the display.

 

It sounds like you are not familiar with color management in windows.
If you have a screen which shows "more" than sRGB you will get oversaturated colors in windows and "normal" applications.
The XPS 15 has no hardware LUT which can be used for color space emulation like most prof. external monitors or some HP npotebooks.
Only if you use an application like Photoshop, Lightroom, ... which uses color management you will see the right colors (if you have installed the correct profile).

 

Well, the XPS 15 like most other computers with graphics cards does have a LUT, nothing "professional" but it surely does tone down colours of non-CM programs on the UHD panel just fine if you choose the sRGB profile in DPC. The issue is that this solution does not seem to work reliably - I have seen it fail with certain BIOS - Intel video reiver version combinations, and separately due to failure of DPC.

 

I am sorry I'm re-opening an old thread, but I have an issue with messed up colours on my Precision (same as XPS 15, really) workstation. As somebody here described, I can either use the "vibrant" mode in DPC that has oversaturated colors, or set it to sRGB mode that unfortunately has extremely prominent pink hue on all grey shades. Anybody found a solution to these problems? This 4K panel is horrible, either it is pink or oversaturated. I would love to be able to fix it.

 

I haven't got to fixing colours yet because I'm not a "pro", reluctant to buy another calibrator, and things seem to be roughly okay with me.

I think firstly you need to understand the difference between non-color-managed and color-managed programs. Preferably try to find CM programs for anything color-relevant you do - then there should be nothing oversaturated. The DPC modes are relevant only for non-CM, but non-CM can't be perfect at all.

And mind there may be driver issues - Anandtech found color problems in their 9560 review a couple months ago, I've noticed them on the 9550 with certain driver combinations about a year ago.

 

Hmm. The laptop is used for software development, so most of the time the colors don't matter too much.. when they do however, it is inside a web browser. And I think none of the browsers are CM. Another issue is with F.lux and external displays: late at night, the warm tones on the Precision are so much more "orange" than on the external displays, that looking at both screens causes headaches.

The DPC sRGB mode is so close to exactly what I want - except the very pink greys. I wonder if the profile can be modified just slightly to lower this pink hue?

Thanks for replying!

 

I don't think so.

 

uninstall DPC.

 

Actually most current broswers come with CM - Edge, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, ...
Make sure you have enabled it.

e.g. Firefox since 2013 - http://ntown.at/de/2013/12/28/firefox-color-management/

 

Any guide for Edge? I can just find people saying that it doesn't support CM

 

http://www.gballard.net/psd/go_live_page_profile/embeddedJPEGprofiles.html#
http://cameratico.com/tools/web-browser-color-management-test/