Windows 10 Night Light Mode Compatible with DisplayCal?

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  • #11978

    DarthFader
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    Hi Guys

    Windows 10 recently introduced this Night Light mode to warm the screen temp and reduce blue light at night, obviously I understand with the Night Light mode active the screen calibration will be totally out but will switching off the Night Light mode conflict with my DisplayCal calibration, can I safely use Night Light mode?

    For instance if I need to work in say Lightroom can I switch the Night Light mode off before starting LR and the calibration will still be accurate?

    Are there any caveats with using Night light?

    Would using a 3rd party app like F.lux be better for this functionality?

    Thanks for the help.

    • This topic was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by DarthFader.
    #11986

    Vincent
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    Hi Guys

    Windows 10 recently introduced this Night Light mode to warm the screen temp and reduce blue light at night, obviously I understand with the Night Light mode active the screen calibration will be totally out but will switching off the Night Light mode conflict with my DisplayCal calibration, can I safely use Night Light mode?

    If you ebable Night light, even if you disable it (without rebooting), you loose highbit depth in GPU LUTs. This leads to profile VCGT truncation to 8bit and that truncation leads to banding caused by calibration even your GPU has high bit depth LUTs and dithering. I’ll avoid to use that WIndows 10 feature.
    Same problem if monitor goes to standby in Windows 10 since two or three “big updates” ago.

    If your GPU has 8bit LUT (intel, old nvidias), it does not matter, so use it if you want.

    For instance if I need to work in say Lightroom can I switch the Night Light mode off before starting LR and the calibration will still be accurate?

    Are there any caveats with using Night light?

    Would using a 3rd party app like F.lux be better for this functionality?

    Calibrate to D50 white or warmer from your typical setup without modify OSD controls from your typical setup (like D65 attained with OSD RGB gain for example). I mean to make full whitepoint correction to that warmer white in GPU LUTs.
    When you want a “night light”-like  mode just go to taskbar, click in DisplayCAL’s profile loader and load that warmer white profile. Then start yourfavourite color managed image editor.

    #11993

    DarthFader
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    Thanks for the great reply Vincent, I have an AMD Radeon 5450 grfx card and Dell U2410(which if I recall is a 8bit IPS display), so from what I’m getting from your reply using night mode won’t negatively impact that setup?

    Good advice there about just making a warmer profile using software GPU LUT rather than hardware to use as a DIY Night Light, you mention being able to still use a color managed image editor with the warm DIY Night Light profile loaded, will the color managed image editor automatically compensate for the warmer profile to still show you the image with a correct white balance?

    Is Lightroom CC on Windows 10 a color managed image editor ?

    #11996

    Vincent
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    Thanks for the great reply Vincent, I have an AMD Radeon 5450 grfx card and Dell U2410(which if I recall is a 8bit IPS display), so from what I’m getting from your reply using night mode won’t negatively impact that setup?

    It does not matter how many bits your monitor panel has, I wrote graphic card LUT bitdepth. Your Radeon should be able to handle that without issue so you should avoid Night light mode… or enjoy calbration banding artifacts.

    Good advice there about just making a warmer profile using software GPU LUT rather than hardware to use as a DIY Night Light,

    Windows 10 “Night light” mode is not “hardware”, is a GPU LUT calibration like DisplayCAL’s or software transformation of white and their greys in shaders or whatever they do (on software level).  But is is done in way it truncates GPU LUT content.
    It is not limited to “night light mode”, every tiem Windows tries to modify LUT content on its own (or a program uses MS way to do it like Basiccolor Display)… it causes this mess. You need a reboot to get rid of it.

    you mention being able to still use a color managed image editor with the warm DIY Night Light profile loaded, will the color managed image editor automatically compensate for the warmer profile to still show you the image with a correct white balance?

    No, color managed apps will work with current display profile, the one you made with D50 white in my example. You may loose too many grey levels doing a huge correction of white point in GPU LUT, like in a laptop or an iMac.

    My response just was a more accurate way to get a “night light mode” without banding and with a profile that color managed apps could use to render images in an accurate way to that screen with that warmer calibration.
    It would be better if your screen has two or more user calibration modes (HW calibration or user OSD configurations), since that warmer whitepoint correction wikll be inside monitor… but some screens do not have that: do it in GPU LUTs if you cannot do it in a better way.

    Is Lightroom CC on Windows 10 a color managed image editor ?

    Of course, it is color managed like Photoshop.

    • This reply was modified 5 years, 10 months ago by Vincent.
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