Y50 UHD screen calibration thread

I'm starting this thread to attempt to fix the yellows on the Y50 UHD screen. To many people, the yellows are a little more mustard color than other screens. I'm going to spend the next couple days trying to fix the problem with a combination of adjusting the Intel graphics color settings and calibrating the display with a Spyder4Pro. Unfortunately there's not going to be any way to trace my steps since a lot of what I'm doing is trial and error. You should be able to install my color profiles and copy my Intel graphics settings to get results similar to mine. I highlight similar because YMMV since not all screens are the same.

I would appreciate it if some of you would test these profiles and give me feedback. Not just "I hate it". I'm looking for if the whites look too (red/blue/green/etc), if you saw any improvement in your yellows and if any other colors look off. I'll keep the OP updated with all attempts and will try to update once every day or two until we get something that's as good as it gets.

To install the color profile, you need to go into color management and add the profile manually. There are plenty of online resources on how to do this if you run into trouble. http://www.lightroomforums.net/show...an-sRGB-ICC-Profile-to-your-monitor-(Windows) After that, you may need to restart for the profile to take effect. Then you'll need to open Intel Graphics Properties, click on Display, then click the Color tab. Once you enter the appropriate values, hit apply and save your profile.

Yellow correction attempt #1:

-Use attached icm file here: View attachment Y50 Yellow test 1.zip
-In Intel Color tab set:
Red
Brightness -5
Cotrast 48
Gamma 1.0

Green
Brightness 0
Contrast 50
Gamma 1.1

Blue
Brightness 0
Contrast 50
Gamma 1.1

Advanced
Hue 0
Saturation 15

Yellow correction attempt #2(more saturated): View attachment Y50 Yellow test 2.zip

-Use attached icm file here:
-In Intel Color tab set:
Red
Brightness -5
Cotrast 50
Gamma 0.8

Green
Brightness 0
Contrast 50
Gamma 1.0

Blue
Brightness 0
Contrast 50
Gamma 1.0

Advanced
Hue 0
Saturation 40(although anything between 20-60 looks good)

EDIT: These settings fix the gamma issue and look fantastic with the 2nd attempt icc: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ide...-screen-calibration-thread-2.html#post9732597

Please share what you think.

 

I always thought gpu color control and color profile can't exist (in use) at the same time.

 

I tried out your color profile. It's pretty good. Honestly, the biggest difference is made by turning the brightness up/down. With the brightness on about 50%, the yellows look awful, but boost them up to 75% and they become acceptable.

Here are some pics I took showing my previous settings at 50% brightness and 75% brightness, then your settings at 75% brightness. Top screen is my external and is the same through all pics.

My original settings Red: B 20, C 51, G 1.0; Green: B 20, C 51, G 1.0; Blue: B 20, C 51, G 1.0; Advanced: H 0, S 0 (Screen Brightness 50%)


My original settings Red: B 20, C 51, G 1.0; Green: B 20, C 51, G 1.0; Blue: B 20, C 51, G 1.0; Advanced: H 0, S 0 (Screen Brightness 75%)


Xentar's settings Red: B -5, C 48, G 1.0; Green: B 0, C 50, G 1.1; Blue: B 0, C 50, G 1.1; Advanced: H 0, S 15 (Screen Brightness 75%)

 

I have noticed that the screen applies a different gamma or color profile when you adjust brightness from around 40% to 50%. You can look at a smiley or the windows explorer shortcut and notice a distinct difference just going back and forth with the brightness setting.

Right now I am using Xentars ICM , all intel settings default except saturation at 40. I also always keep the brightness above that color changing threshold and it's tolerable. Newegg's site still makes me cringe though.

 

Thats what I noticed too. Is there anyone to stop the screen from auto adjusting the gamma when you lower brightness?

 

When I apply, it appears too be a bit too red. Anyone else notice the same.

 

Did you turn down the red brightness? If so, you might need to do it some more. I intentionally calibrated the icm with extra red since it seemed to help the yellow look a little better. Going to try more again tomorrow.

 

Updated the OP with a different profile. This one fixes the reds a little(I hope) and also has adjustments for saturation. I'm finding extremely large differences in results at different brightness levels. This is a really strange screen. Sometimes I think things look good and then I walk into a different room at a different time of day and it looks different again. We'll see how this profile does in the morning.

 

Yeah, I keep experiencing the same thing--I've been using your first attempt color profile since yesterday and fiddling with the Intel settings. Every time I got to something I thought I liked, I ended up having to change it again ten minutes later because the improvement was gone. I ended up just settling with your settings with gamma on blue and green kicked back to 1.0 because whites were shifted a bit blue with the gamma increased.

I just applied your 2nd attempt though and I'm really liking the results so far. Gold seems to pop a little more and yellow is staying yellow a little better at lower brightness levels. Thanks!

 

I hear ya. I get to something I think I like, then after further review....... You 2nd attempt is much better, no red washout. Thanks for the update.

 

I think I've figured something out but I have no idea yet how to fix it.

There's definitely some kind of adaptive/dynamic contrast setting going on with this screen. I don't think we're crazy for thinking the display changes from minute to minute. I discovered this because I have Google Drive on my bookmarks bar and noticed the yellow changing as I switched between tabs. It affects all colors but seems to affect yellow the most dramatically. You can test it by making sure something small and yellow is displaying somewhere on your screen and then doing an image search for "gray" in one tab and "yellow" in another. Switch between the tabs and watch what happens to the yellow. When I'm on the yellow tab, it looks bright; on the gray tab, it looks like mustard. Going to the gray tab actually dims the whole display.

The trouble is that I can't figure out how to turn it off. People have documented a similar problem with Surfaces and other laptops but it doesn't seem anyone has found a solution. I've tried disabling adaptive brightness in Control Panel and disabling the Intel driver's Adaptive Contrast Enhancement (have to do it through the registry since our Intel HD Graphics Control Panel doesn't provide advanced settings). I fear it may be a power-saving "feature" baked into the panel, in which case there probably isn't a solution.

 

Found a decent setup using Xentar's latest icm.

Color > advanced > Hue = 357
Color > advanced > Saturation = 50

Color > basic > contrast = 40
Color > basic > gamma = 1.5

Red brightness -10
Green brightness -10
Blue brightness -6

Screen brightness 50% or higher.

 

I have noticed it too. Try this: Open paint, select the fill tool and choose yellow. Make sure your screen brightness is greater than 50%. Now stare at the yellow swatch and left and right click your fill tool on the canvas and you will see that when then screen is filled with yellow, it applies a boost to it making it look almost normal, and when you fill white, the swatch turns mustard color. Now fill with yellow and drop the brightness below %50 then back to %50 and you will see a dramatic color shift. Note that when brightness is below %50, you can dump yellow and white and it doesn't adjust.. it's always mustard at that brightness or below.

 

These settings are awesome!

 

Thanks for sharing! Just a quick dumb question: how do I set the ICC profile? I couldn't find any guides elsewhere.

 

Here: How to assign an sRGB ICC Profile to your monitor (Windows) - Lightroom Forums

Win 8 is the same as Win 7

 

I'm starting to think that the CPU or something else is drawing power away from the backlight and causes the screen to dim intermittently. Please try this while on battery power:
-turn brightness all the way up
-ensure adaptive brightness is off
-open notepad
-type a few characters
-maximize the window
-cycle between hitting x to close and hitting cancel. You should see the screen dim for a split second when you try to close notepad.

I don't have my charger at work so I can't tell if this happens on power. Can someone else please verify? Either way, I'm not sure what to make of it. I'm thinking it's power draw because it doesn't happen when you turn the brightness down a little.

EDIT: This seems to have helped. Stert->System->Advanced System Settings->Advanced tab->Performance Settings->uncheck "Animate windows when minimizing and maximizing.

 

The 4k panel is based on RGBW pixels, which means there are 4 sub-pixel (Red, Green, Blue, White) in 2 pixel (that's why Y50 4K is sooooooo cheap).
A lot of info can be found if you would love to read the whole patent.
Liquid crystal display with RGBW pixels and dynamic backlight control - Samsung Mobile Display Co., Ltd.


I think we may have to wait for samsung's new firmware so the whole problem can be solved.

 

That makes sense actually. I was wondering if there was still a white backlight since it was so different to calibrate. Nice find, thanks for sharing!

 

These work great with FHD AUO too, except the contrast, I left it on 50.
Thanks!

 

What exactly does the color profile do? When I set your 'Y50 test' profiles to default, I don't really notice the difference.

 

Hi,

This worked for me the best

Color > Basic > Brightness 27
Color > Basic > Contrast 40
Color > Basic > Gamma 0.8


Color > Advanced > Hue 346
Color > Advanced > Saturation 0

There is room for improvement, but it was a very good start for me on my screen.I will work on it later this week. Let me know how will it look on yours.

 

I guess I should share my settings as well:

Red:
Brightness: 5
Contrast: 50
Gamma: 1.0

Green:
Brightness: 10
Contrast: 50
Gamma: 1.1

Blue:
Brightness: 15
Contrast: 50
Gamma: 1.1

Hue: 0
Saturation: 5


Only problem is, these settings only work when I'm looking at certain screens. I'm hoping someone works out this dynamic colors option, because it's really frustrating!

 

Unfortunately, since the panel is RGBW (thanks for clearing that up, belatedeffort), the dynamic colors are pretty much by design. You can read up on the technology here: Technology – What Does It Do? The behavior we're seeing is because of the "Dynamic Backlight Control" technology built into the displays. That's why yellow looks almost normal when there's a lot of saturated yellow on the screen; the display boosts the contrast ratio when it deems necessary. When it doesn't, you get crappy olive-tinted yellow. Unless someone releases some control panel allowing us to change these settings or determines another fix, this is pretty much works-as-intended. It's the price to pay for inexpensive 4K.

 

I've been messing around with these color settings in profiles on a Microsoft Store UHD Y50, and it's been pretty frustrating.

Pretty much, the biggest hurdle, that seems unconquerable, is balancing the Reds and Yellows. The HUE slider in the Advanced Color options in Intel's graphics control panel appears to be the only way to approach the correct yellow, at the expense of red.

By default, at HUE 0 or 360, red is good, but yellow is some sort of neon olive pukey yellow. We all are familiar with this. Moving the slider from 360 backward toward 350, the yellow becomes more natural, if not badly suntanned, but the red becomes magenta.

I've got several IPS displays (one of which is really nice) and a nice MVA display that I can use to compare colors. Here are the images that I used to balance these colors:

The image below is a large Google Chrome logo. This has saturated red, green, yellow, and blue. The image appears impossible to please with the Y50 display. The yellow is either radioactive olive or suntanned/ultra-muted normal yellow. Getting anywhere closer destroys red.

The really special part of using this image is that in the parts of the chrome wheel that tuck into the counter-clockwise next color, there is a darker shade of each respective color. This is important because messing with saturation sliders easily will totally mask out the darker shade of red. You want to keep that shade, otherwise you're destroying your tonal contrast.

Take a look below:
View attachment 114532

The next image is the McDonald's logo below. This one is perfect for balancing red and yellow, since we're all familiar with these colors, and they sit right next to each other.
View attachment 114533

Once you think you have your yellows down, check against the Coca Cola logo, to confirm that red isn't horrible.

The reason I chose Diet Coke Coke Zero is that you have red, black, and white next to each other, which makes it easier to compare the red.
View attachment 114534
View attachment 114535

Finally, this is a good picture of the Simpsons, because you have all sorts of colors to look at. This one will most certainly make your pride in your yellow tweaks fizzle out, especially next to a good display.
View attachment 114536

With all of that said, here are my attempts at getting close. They are very similar to other suggestions on this site:

With Ventar (OP)'s provided ICC color profile, these are some settings to put into the Intel Graphics Control Panel:

---
This is a tweak from the one that Ventar likes:

Hue: 357
Saturation: 40

Red Brightness: -20
Green Brightness: -10
Blue Brightness: -6

Contrast: 40
Gamma: 1.5

The issue with this one is that yellows are muted and greenish (see simpsons), and everything is a bit overcast.
---

The next one pushes the Hue back, like someone's suggestion around post 13. However any hue less than 351 is going to produce straight up magenta reds.

This is one that eases that back a bit (remember this goes with Xentar's ICC):

Hue: 351
Saturation: 6

Brightness: 4
Contrast: 41
Gamma: 1.1

Compared to the last one, the colors are quite a bit more accurate (except the reds are on the magenta end), and it gets rid of the blue color cast, but the trade off is that everything is a bit more dim or dull.

---

Here's my last one, and the one I'm currently using. This one actually does not use Xentar's ICC, but rather the standard sRGB IEC61966-2-1 sRGB Color Space Profile.icm.

Hue: 357
Saturation: 40

Brightness: 0
Contrast: 45
Gamma: 1.1

The problem with this one compared to the others is that the red contrast isn't great (check google chrome logo above), and has a slight green color cast (you can fix a bit by reducing green brightness slightly). I think that's a pretty good trade-off.

---

Maybe if we can get other ICC profiles in here, we could get closer. Can we use these ICC profiles to make it so that when moving that hue slider from 360 backwards, the reds stay fine while the yellows creep away from the sludgy default color? You can do it in photoshop, but not sure about this.

It appears the display is capable of rendering the correct colors (mayyyyyybe not quite for the yellows), but we can't seem to isolate them simultaneously.

I'd like to know soon, because I'm on the verge of returning this.

 

I am currently using this with all color contrast at 40%, red 40%, green 40%, blue 50%. This improves my white, and sort of removes that adaptive yellow on max brightness. Is it me or is the screen not that bright during night usage? My g60jx TN panel seem to have a greater brightness than this.

 

Does anyone knows if the screen replacement would work for this model like the regular FHD one?
I might end up changing the screen, and not sure if it's possible since it's a 4K screen.

 

> RGBW subpixels

Thanks for clearing that up, I'm glad I didn't jump the gun on this one, I'm a bit autistic when it comes to subpixels because I do notice the Samsung subpixel arrangements... Maybe less so on their smaller denser RGBW panels (Note 2014), but nevertheless...

 

Hello all! Thanks for working on this issue! I am in the same position as all of you, and I would really like to get this display into tolerable territory.

This isn't great (I don't love the white, and I hate many light reds), but here's one I've been testing and finding the yellow OK:

Color > Advanced
> Hue = 350
> Saturation = 62

Color > Basic
>Red Brightness: -12
>Red Contrast: 40
>Red Gamma: 1.3

>Green Brightness: -11
>Green Contrast: 40
>Green Gamma: 1.5

>Blue Brightness: -8
>Blue Contrast: 40
>Blue Gamma: 1.6

Like many of the others, the brighter the screen, the better for this one.

It's not right at all yet (because of the red), but it's another stab based on the work of others. I thought I should submit it for review by others.

Some things I don't love about this:
- The whites are a bit off
- The yellow is certainly gold (par for the course at this point, I think)
- Darker blues can be a bit purple
- Lighter reds can be pink <- this is the one in greatest need of repair!

 

Here's another one, I've been tweaking from (less washed than the other one I just shared and better reds, but not quite right in other areas)...

Color > Advanced
> Hue = 350
> Saturation = 26

Color > Basic
>Red Brightness: -17
>Red Contrast: 45
>Red Gamma: 1.1

>Green Brightness: -4
>Green Contrast: 46
>Green Gamma: 1.0

>Blue Brightness: -17
>Blue Contrast: 45
>Blue Gamma: 1.1

Like many of the others, the brighter the screen, the better for this one.

Like my last one, this is not right at all yet, but, again, I thought it was worth sharing.

Some things I don't love about this:
- The yellow is a mustard gold (I like the gold of my first submission better ... this isn't green, but it certainly has mustard tones.
- Darker blues can be a bit purple <- similar issue to my last submission
- Certain reds can be magenta <- not good reds but different problem than my last submission

 

I'm with Oranjoose here. I've actually implemented the same settings as the last ones given, with a very minor tweak (Brightness - R:-3 G:0, B:3). We should work with what we've got for the time being. These settings seem to max out what color accuracy we're capable of getting at the moment. Obviously, there is still some work to be done(yellows still appear greenish, oranges still appear brownish-red). However, if the icc profiles are tweaked a bit, I believe we may be able to get a little closer to the correct colors, and slowly work toward the best results we can.

 

Hi there, got my new Y50 UHD today, and the yellows are beyond horrible

On the D partition, with the drivers, I found a .cmd script in the Brightness folder:

Code:

powercfg -setacvalueindex 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e 7516b95f-f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99 aded5e82-b909-4619-9949-f5d71dac0bcb 46
powercfg -setdcvalueindex 381b4222-f694-41f0-9685-ff5bb260df2e 7516b95f-f776-4464-8c53-06167f40cc99 aded5e82-b909-4619-9949-f5d71dac0bcb 46
exit

Could it be of any use?

 

Well..I got it a little better using the instructions here. But still really bad.
Asked Lenovo on their Swedish facebook page. How hard can it be to fix...

 

Notebookcheck just updated their review for the UHD model, and they included an icc profile. Once you bump the saturation past about 30, it actually looks pretty good.
source: Lenovo IdeaPad Y50-70 (59424712) Notebook Review Update - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

 

I bumped the saturation up to 45 and I kinda thinks it looks better. The yellow still looks a little like mustard, but alot better!

 

errrr, it's more vivid, but there's a noticeable red washout...back to mustard for me.

 

The adaptive brightness just destroys the display color reproduction I feel.
Might be a bit more power efficient too, I'm unsure. I am just hoping that it is possible to swap the display out eventually.

 

Ugh. After using the profile for a while I realized it's not better. It's just less crappy.

E-mail sent to Lenovo in Sweden.

 

I've come to notice that if you push the saturation all the way to 100%, the yellows seem a bit closer to normal. Obviously everything is pretty over saturated though.

Also if you full screen a white page, colors look so much better. Some adaptive stuff really kills the color when on a darker screen

 

Well, I got a answer from the swedish Lenovo facebookpage.
Rough translation:
"Thank you for your question.

The reason that UHD does not show 100% correct colors is because it's build out of 4 subpixels per pixel. To increase the brightness and batterylife the screen has one extra wide pixel, and the sideeffect of this is that yellow will not be represented correctly. This can be fixed by setting the brightness to 75%"

So...The reason yellow is bad is to increase battery life(which is really bad) and to increase brightness(which is bad). And putting it at 75% does almost nothing.

I'm gonna respond. Hopefully I'll get a better response from their email-support.



I have notices one thing though:
If I for example mark a chunk of text, some sort of adaptive brightness / color changer kicks in and colors look noticable better...Weird, gonna tell Lenovo this.

 

How cute. Now they simply gave me the tips to use:

Color > advanced > Hue = 357
Color > advanced > Saturation = 50

Color > basic > contrast = 40
Color > basic > gamma = 1.5

Red brightness -10
Green brightness -10
Blue brightness -6

Screen brightness 50% or higher.

I love how the even wrote on english. Copy-paste much? Isn't that profile from THIS thread?

EDIT* Yep, they just copypasted the second post on the second page in this thread. Nice support.

I just told them "Fine, I can live with not improving this. At least I want to turn off this adaptive brightness/color thing and have it on all they time since the colors improve when it activates".

 

Yeah a full screen white page with yellow on it appears to show the yellows pretty well. It adjusts to display more accurately.
Want a good color to mimic this? Here:
http://www.cs.utsa.edu/~wagner/CS3723/re/re3.pdf

The yellows in the boxes appear to be ugly mustard/olive yellow. If you fullscreen it, or zoom in to the yellow, it adjusts to pretty good color reproduction. When you zoom out, it goes back to crap colors

Also if you set the saturation to 100, yellow looks fine. But wow do the colors bleed your eyeballs lol

 

Okay... Their email support just tells me to try installing Lenovo Energy Manager
Laptops and netbooks :: Lenovo Y Series laptops :: Y50 70 Notebook Lenovo - Lenovo Support (SE)

Already had Energy Manager, but tried reinstalling(in case this link as something special) and it did nothing.
Let's see their response. At least this one didn't directly tell me "it's the pixel layout and can't be fixed".

 

The yellow still look awful to me after calibration. I'm a photo editor and I just can't live with that yellow mustard color. Anyone know whether I can just swap out the UHD screen and replace it with a normal FHD screen? Thanks in advance.

 

Different connectors I believe. Unfortunately nobody (besides one poster, articjoe) has begin an attempt at swapping the screen. His is being shipped. He is swapping it for a 2K screen but much better color reproduction. We will see what happens

 

I have noticed a pretty good improvement in my yellows by going into the Lenovo Settings App then>specific settings>video mode>photo mode. My yellows seem to do much better in the photo mode.

 

any news on Lenovo or samsung doing anything to fix this? I just got a new y50, and unfortunately, i haven't done enough research to find this thread . i have no option to return my unit, maybe only replace with another one.. but it seems all of them have that problem..or am i wrong and there are good ones out there?

 

Unfortunately there is no news about it. People around here started replacing their displays: http://forum.notebookreview.com/ideapad-essential/755626-y50-replacement-displays-compendium.html

 

Such a great laptop otherwise, but what a massive f***-up with the screen, my eyes just can't adjust to it, it gives me severe head pain.

I am utterly staggered, and not sure what should be my next step, should I return it, get an external & wait for the BIOS fix (will it even fix it?), start looking for a replacement screen?

You seem like you know stuff around here, what would you suggest?


Kind regards,
Aaron

 

Its up to you really, consider pros and cons and decide..
I have the Y50 as well and I don't plan to return it even though I don't like the screen either. I'd probably replace the screen at some point.
Honestly I don't think Lenovo can do much about it, its a poor quality display and I don't think that's fixable by BIOS update or similar. At this point as far as I know Y50 non touch is offered with two types of displays, AUO and ChiMei, and both are pretty awful although the AUO is a bit better than the ChiMei. The problem is when you order there is no way to know which display you're going to get.