DisplayCAL / News: Recent posts

Fixed in this release:

• [Cosmetic] [UI] Improve PCS to device gamut outline plot.
• [Blocker] Linux, macOS: Fix failure to launch if initial install
  (regression of lockfile change in 3.8.9.2)

Fixed in this release:

• [Minor] When previous instance was force quit, override leftover lockfile.
• [Trivial] When using a custom profiling testchart with very few or no dark RGB gray patches, try to better maintain slope of existing points during shaper curve generation.

Fixed in this release:

• [Moderate] Fix SpyderX calibration issue when using 32-bit ArgyllCMS executables.

Changed in this release:

• [Enhancement] Show the instrument serial number (if available) when prompting to physically interact with the instrument.
• [Enhancement] Check SpyderX dark offset calibration and abort if it is too high (user error).
• [Enhancement] Adjust perceptual device to PCS table black point to match perceptual PCS to device table.
• [Enhancement] Warn during automatic output levels detection if the display device input range or graphics driver output range look to be misconfigured.
• [Enhancement] Profile loader (Windows): Use an alternate method to enforce single instance if local IPC is blocked.
• Tone response curve plot now uses the illuminant-relative profile whitepoint instead of D50 for input values if using absolute colorimetric intent.
• Rename “LG OLED” (.dcl) 3D LUT format to “DeviceControl” and unlock available resolutions.... read more

Fixed in this release:

• [Moderate] Work-around failure to launch if wxPython 3.0 /
  wxWidgets 3.0 release number do not match (using wxPython 3.0
  is deprecated).

Changed in this release:

• [Enhancement] Detect and warn about malformed colorimeter corrections (e.g. from non-official sources). Move them to the trash automatically if they were previously (manually) installed.
• [Enhancement] Always enumerate instruments on application startup if more than one instrument was detected the last time the application was used (cross-platform consistency).
• [Enhancement] When prompting for instrument calibration, display the just now detected instrument name instead of the previously enumerated name (the latter might be stale if you forgot to refresh after changing connected instruments).
• [Enhancement] Use a slightly improved smoothing method when creating high resolution PCS to device tables.
• [Enhancement] Increase automatic PCS to device table resolution for Lab* LUT profiles to 45x45x45 if using smoothing.
• [Enhancement] [UI] Only auto-close profile/3D LUT installation dialog after a successful installation.
• [Enhancement] Don’t auto-close madTPG after 3D LUT installation.
• [Enhancement] macOS: Warn if a black luminance calibration target is set.
• [Enhancement] Profile loader (Windows): Use a minimally faster method to check for other running applications.... read more

Fixed in this release:

• [Trivial] [UI] Profile information (Linux): When using wxPython 3.0 instead of 4.0, clicking the sash would throw an error (using wxPython 3.0 is deprecated).
• [Trivial] macOS: Only automatically re-enable black point compensation if restoring defaults or loading a non-3D-LUT preset.
• [Trivial] Profile loader (Windows): Work-around two instances of the profile loader being started after powering on the system if fast startup was enabled in Windows power settings.

Changed in this release:

• [Enhancement] macOS: Automatically enable not using the video card gamma table to apply calibration during characterization measurements if using limited range (16..235). This should mitigate issues with older graphics chipsets and/or macOS versions that use the wrong output range internally when connected to some monitors that expect to receive limited range signals.
• [Enhancement] Profile loader (Windows): A scheduled task now restarts the profile loader after resume from standby/hibernation as well as daily at 04:00 AM (whichever comes first), to mitigate the Windows GDI SetDeviceGammaRamp API leaking memory since Windows 10 1903.... read more

Changed in this release:

• [Enhancement] If the graphics drivers or hardware do not support loadable gamma ramps or calibration, show a more descriptive error message.
• [Enhancement] Increase the timeout for display & instrument detection during application startup from 10 to 20 seconds, to allow for slow opening of legacy serial ports.
• [Enhancement] Windows 10 1903: Always do instrument detection during application startup if more than one instrument was connected the last time the application was used, as the list of instruments is not guaranteed to be consistent between sessions under 1903.
• [Enhancement] Profile loader (Windows): Apply smoothing to calibration if the quantization bitdepth is set to 8.
• [Enhancement] Profile loader (Windows): No longer require running elevated to be able to detect changes in the display configuration under Windows 10 1903.... read more

Changed in this release:

• [Enhancement] macOS: Use caffeinate to prevent display sleep and screensaver.

Fixed in this release:

• [Moderate] DisplayCAL 3.8.4 broke video levels (16..235) output encoding/decoding for video card gamma table tags (profiles using calibration with video output levels created by 3.8.4 can be fixed by re-creating via menu “File”, “Create profile from measurement data...” and selecting the existing profile).

Changed in this release:

• [Enhancement] Do early detection of highly non-monotonic luminance responses when doing on-the-fly generation of the preconditioning profile for auto-optimized testcharts with 425 or more patches.
• [Enhancement] Always create a single shaper curve for the fallback matrix tags of cLUT profiles with nonlinear calibration.
• [Enhancement] Profile loader (Windows): Only try to restore profile associations on exit if they had to be fixed on launch to begin with.... read more

• Profile loader (Windows): Work around Windows 10 1903 (May 2019 update) severe banding bug and automatically disable Microsoft Windows Color System Calibration Loader task. Logging out and back in is required, and may be required each time a display's default associated profile is changed.
  Fixed in this release:
• [Minor] Verification: Prevent unintended mixing of unicode and binary strings when a device link profile is used.
• [Cosmetic] [UI] Linux (KDE): Centering the measurement window would increase its size slightly and resetting its size would move the window down and right (regression of SVN revision r6137).

• [Enhancement] Always try to skip initial colorimeter
  calibration for uniformity measurements (e.g. SpyderX).
• [Enhancement] Linux: Use GObject Introspection for DBus access (if
  available).
• [Enhancement] Linux: Use a default timeout of 500 ms for DBus calls.
• [Enhancement] Profile loader (Windows): If registry
  access to the display configuration fails (e.g. due to running
  non-elevated), log a warning only once.
• Windows: Only log Windows exceptions that are actually errors.
• [Minor] If invoked from the main application's “Tools” menu,
  the synthetic ICC profile creator HDR configuration could
  affect the main application's 3D LUT HDR configuration.
• [Minor] Successive requested instrument calibration during
  uniformity measurements did not wait for the calibration to
  complete before continuing (e.g. SpyderX).
• [Trivial] Prevent potential blocking of socket binding if a
  previous instance exited unexpectedly.
• [Trivial] [UI] Change parent inheritance for pathdialog
  wrappers so interacting with the parent is appropriately
  prevented when the wrapper dialog is shown via a scripting
  request.
• [Trivial] [UI] Linux: Always prefer the global DPI value (Xft.dpi) for
  HiDPI scaling with wxGTK2.
• [Trivial] [UI] Windows: Work-around wxPython Phoenix bug:
  Destroying a frame loaded from XRC affects subsequently
  loaded XRC resources (leading to instantiated controls being
  of the wrong type and failing initialization due to not having
  the expected interfaces).

Fixed in this release:

• [Minor] [UI] Linux: Some custom widgets could have a size of zero with
  wxGTK2 under non-KDE desktop environments when
  org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor was set to 0
  (regression of a change in DisplayCAL 3.8.1, SVN revision
  r5979).
• [Minor] [UI] Linux: No scaling for some custom widgets with wxGTK2 and
  HiDPI unless org.gnome.desktop.interface scaling-factor was set
  to a value of 2 or higher (regression of a change in DisplayCAL
  3.8.1, SVN revision r6005). HiDPI scaling with wxGTK2 under X11
  is now handled entirely by the global DPI value (Xft.dpi).
• [Minor] [UI] Linux: Too small size for the contents of some custom
  widgets with wxGTK2 and HiDPI.
• [Cosmetic] [UI] Linux: Too much padding inside some custom widgets
  with wxGTK2 and HiDPI.
• [Cosmetic] [UI] Linux: Occasional glitchy window sizing under Wayland.
• [Cosmetic] [UI] Linux: Added workaround for double window decorations
  when the environment variable GTK_CSD is set to a nonzero value
  under X11 (e.g. elementary OS Juno with Phanteon desktop).

Added in this release:

• [Feature] Preliminary experimental Wayland support under GNOME
  3 using colord (requires ArgyllCMS 2.1 or newer as well).
  Caveats do apply:
  • Window placement and ordering is completely up to the
    compositor under Wayland. There is generally no way for an
    application to place its own windows at specific relative
    locations or z-orders. As a result of this, the measurement
    window cannot stay always on top or be automatically centered.
  • Extra care needs to be taken that other windows are not placed
    on top.
  • Video card gamma table (videoLUT) access is handled by colord.
    Some functions like viewing current videoLUT contents may not
    be available.
  • The measurement window color depth is limited to 8 bits per
    channel per pixel (but dithering is used to achieve a higher
    effective color depth).
  • The measurement window may be subject to desktop-wide color
    management in upcoming versions of Wayland (although the
    display device is inhibited during measurements via the
    org.freedesktop.ColorManager.Device[1] D-Bus API which should
    prevent this, and as a fallback a linear calibration sRGB
    profile is temporarily installed during measurements if the
    D-BUs API is unavailable, which should result in an identity
    transform, i.e. effectively no color management, as well as
    linear video card gamma tables).
  • Application support for color management under Wayland via
    colord still seems to lacking[2] (although the list may well be
    out-of-date).
  • Only tested under GNOME 3 (Fedora 30, Ubuntu 19.04). Support
    for other desktop environments will need to be implemented
    separately until Wayland gains a color management and
    calibration/profiling protocol.
• [Feature] LG OLED 3D LUT format.... read more

Added in this release:

• [Feature] SpyderX support (requires ArgyllCMS 2.1.0 or newer,
  use ArgyllCMS 2.1.0_mod to be able to skip instrument self-
  calibration).
• [Feature] Colorimeter correction information with graph.
• [Feature] Synthetic ICC profile creator: Drag & drop support
  for TI3 measurement files.
• [Enhancement] Rudimentary support for hypothetical future
  instruments and their measurement modes (any new instrument
  support added to ArgyllCMS in the future should be fully usable
  in DisplayCAL right away without needing an update for
  instrument-specific measurement modes).
• [Enhancement] Prefer colorimeter corrections from “ArgyllCMS”
  folder and ignore duplicate (spectral) colorimeter corrections
  from “color” folder (e.g. installed by HCFR under Windows).
• [Enhancement] Display technology information to aid in the
  choice of a suitable measurement mode or correction.
• [Enhancement] Default to high-resolution spectrum mode (if
  available) for spectrometers that support it.
• [Enhancement] Include some additional spectral sample
  colorimeter corrections when importing for i1 Display Pro and
  ColorMunki Display (e.g. MacBook Pro 2016 Retina with PFS
  Phosphor WLED “P3” display, LG OLED 6-series WOLED based on
  samples from LG C6 and E6 OLED TVs, sourced and combined from
  community colorimeter corrections database contributions).

Changed in this release:... read more

Phasing out 0install support. While the 0install version of DisplayCAL, which was originally introduced as a replacement for the long-defunct Autopackage system under Linux, has had its uses, the low distribution (around 6%) of 0install versus the standalone version does no longer warrant the additional time and work needed to maintain this separate deployment path. 0install support will thus be phased out with this version, which is only available as “standalone” installation. Windows and macOS users will be updated automatically to the standalone version. Linux users should switch to a standalone package at their earliest convenience.
There will be a transition period of a few months during which old 0install versions will continue to run, but after which the respective online infrastructure will be decommissioned.... read more

Changed in this release:

• [Cosmetic] [UI] Show ColorMunki spectrometer as “ColorMunki Design/Photo, i1Studio” in instrument dropdown for better differentiation from “ColorMunki Display” and “ColorMunki Smile” colorimeters.

Fixed in this release:

• [Minor]: UnicodeError when trying to access 3rd-party ICC v4 profiles MultiLocalizedUnicodeType tags with non-US/UK country code(s) for english language.
• [Minor] Profile loader (Windows): Work-around an incompatibility with Wacom tablets (tray icon right-click popup menu didn't work).
• [Minor] macOS: Creating a colorimeter correction didn't work if the display manufacturer couldn't be determined automatically (regression of autocomplete change in DisplayCAL 3.7 due to undocumented wxPython incompatibility).

• [Enhancement] Measurement report: Updated Fogra Media Wedge V3
  evaluation criteria to ISO 12647-7:2016 version of the standard
  (use ΔE*00 and ΔCh for CMY gray).
• [Enhancement] Measurement report: Moved ΔICtCp to general
  evaluation criteria so it can be shown in the additional
  statistics for all available criteria.
• [Enhancement] Updated simplified chinese translation (thanks to
  Mars).
• [Enhancement] Full field pattern insertion: Support the latest
  ArgyllCMS 2.0.2 Beta development code.
• [Enhancement] [UI] Consistency: When changing the verification
  chart, set the simulate whitepoint relative to display profile
  whitepoint option according to the simulation profile (just as
  when changing the simuation profile itself) and don't reset the
  simulate whitepoint option when changing the simulation
  profile.
• [Cosmetic] Automatically fall back to the default verification
  chart if the selected one no longer exists (due to the chart
  file having been moved or deleted).
• [Cosmetic] Detect highly non-monotonic luminance responses when
  creating shaper curves (intended to let creating a profile from
  highly non-monotonic measurements fail just as before, but with
  a nicer, more descriptive error message instead of the raw
  exception from the underlying fitting function).
• [Cosmetic] When creating a profile fails and results in an
  error dialog, do not show the superfluous additional “profiling
  not finished” message.
• [Minor] Restored the ability to create colorimeter corrections
  for virtual displays, which was accidentally removed in
  DisplayCAL 3.7.

Added in this release:

• [Feature] Full field pattern insertion option for selected pattern generators (madTPG*, Prisma and Resolve). Note that madTPG on Windows requires using a modified version of ArgyllCMS.
• [Feature] Chromatic adaptation control for the synthetic ICC profile creator.
• Resolve HDR 3D LUT preset (SMPTE 2084 hard clip, no tonemapping).

Changed in this release:

• [Enhancement] Show a column with the spectral resolution and range of the reference measurements when listing colorimeter corrections from the online database (if available).
• [Enhancement] Improved support for (3rd party) profiles with chromatic adaptation transforms other than Bradford, e.g. for use as 3D LUT source profiles.
• [Enhancement] Early abort when cancelling video level detection measurements.
• [Enhancement] Early abort if connecting to madTPG fails.
• [Enhancement] Updated simplified chinese translation (thanks to Mars).
• [Enhancement] If using madTPG and continuing from interactive adjustment to iterative grayscale calibration, wait three seconds after switching to fullscreen and exclusive fullscreen respectively, to give the display time to complete the switch, before commencing measurements.
• [Enhancement] Show messages from instrument related popup dialogs during measurements on the madTPG on-screen display as well.
• Hue preservation less than 100% for HDR SMPTE 2084 3D LUTs with roll-off tonemapping now only affects red-orange/orange/amber hues (i.e. match madVR’s “color tweaks for fire & explosions”).
• [Enhancement] Verification: Before attempting to create a measurement report, automatically check the PCS to device table resolution for LUT profiles if necessary and warn about low resolution tables.
• [Enhancement] 3D LUT verification: When using a different whitepoint target for a 3D LUT, use the altered source profile as simulation profile for verification.
• [Enhancement] 3D LUT verification: When creating a self check report, automatically use the device link profile.
• [Enhancement] Measurement report: Show weighted ΔL, ΔC and ΔH for ΔE94 and ΔE00.
• [Enhancement] Measurement report: Signed values for ΔL76, ΔL94, ΔC76 and ΔC94 are now always relative to the nominal values (match ΔE*00 and ΔICtCp).
• [Enhancement] Measurement report: Measured vs display profile whitepoint is now a purely informational statistic, no longer a pass criteria.
• [UI] When creating a colorimeter correction, allow selecting a display manufacturer via autocomplete if not set.
• [UI] [Cosmetic] Minor UI spacing adjustments.
• [Cosmetic] For HDR 3D LUTs with SMPTE 2084 (hard clip) tone curve, set the mastering display peak luminance in the simulation profile description to the target peak.
• [Enhancement] macOS: For iMacs, use the model identifier as display description.... read more

• [Feature] Measurement report: ICtCp and ΔICtCp color distance
  metric.
• [Enhancement] Show report type in self check report.
• [Enhancement] Add actual display profile description to self
  check report if a simulation profile is used as display
  profile.
• [Enhancement] Use the same method to create HDR 3D LUTs whether
  the display profile is cLUT or matrix based.
• [Enhancement] Verification: Do not automatically enable
  “Simulate whitepoint relative to display profile whitepoint” if
  the verification chart does not contain Lab* reference data.
• [Enhancement] Measurement and self check report: Only
  automatically enable the use of absolute values when simulating
  the reference whitepoint if no simulation profile was used.
• [Minor] 3D LUT/verification with a display profile that has a
  black level of zero, but embedded characterization data black
  level above zero: Black offset also needs to be applied if not
  using BT.1886 for correct results.
• [Minor] When generating high resolution PCS to device tables
  during HDR 3D LUT creation, use the configured resolution even
  if low quality PCS to device tables were generated when
  creating the profile.

• [Minor]: Don't call setlocale() unconditionally, and restore
  previous locale (fixes build under non-english locales,
  regression of XDG changes in DisplayCAL 3.6.1, SVN revision
  5457 and up).

• [Feature] Adjustable hue preservation (values less than 100%
  will gradually hue shift very bright and saturated
  redorange/orange/yellowgreen hues to a more yellowish tone,
  preserving more saturation and detail) for HDR SMPTE 2084 3D
  LUTs with roll-off tonemapping (default 50%).
• [Feature] Ability to set a calibration target luminance by
  measuring the ambient light level.
• [Feature] Verification tab: Hold the “alt” key on your keyboard
  to create a profile or device link (3D LUT) self check report
  instead of a measurement report.
• [Enhancement] DCI P3 D65 profile for use as 3D LUT source
  colorspace or measurement report simulation profile.
• [Enhancement] Increased the default number of patches for the
  madVR HDR preset back to 425.
• [Enhancement] HDR 3D LUT SMPTE 2084 tonemapping: Restored near
  black tone reproduction for displays with non-zero black level
  and output offset less than 100% to pre-v3.6 values.
• [Enhancement] Improved HDR 3D LUT SMPTE 2084 tonemapping speed.
• [Enhancement] Improved HDR 3D LUT accuracy for colorimetric
  rendering intents.
• [Enhancement] Increased default display update delay for
  Resolve preset to 1000 ms.
• [Enhancement] Quantize Autodesk/Kodak (.3dl) 3D LUT values by
  always rounding up (match the format specification in the
  Lustre user guide).
• [Enhancement] Limit the number of concurrent worker processes
  depending on system memory to avoid swapping.
• [Enhancement] Always normalize CGATS data to Y = 100 when
  processing files not created by DisplayCAL.
• [Enhancement] Get the black level for computation of 3D LUT or
  verification target tone curves from the embedded
  characterization data if a lookup through the display profile
  returns zero (makes e.g. Rec. 1886 work properly in that case).
• [Enhancement] Synthetic ICC profile creator: Increase number of
  decimal digits for black level to 6 and do not clamp to 16-bit
  integer values to offer more fine grained control.
• [Enhancement]: Use configured XDG “well known” user directories
  (currently only used to determine the localized name of the
  “Downloads” directory).
• [UI] Moved HDR 3D LUT SMPTE 2084 tonemapping
  luminance/saturation/hue preservation controls to advanced
  options (hidden by default).
• [Moderate] madVR 3D LUT generation via the main application:
  When using a non-standard source colorspace whitepoint (by
  setting a calibration whitepoint target different from the
  source colorspace's original whitepoint, e.g. not using DCI
  white for DCI P3), non-standard values for input primaries and
  whitepoint were written to the 3D LUT header, madVR 3D LUT slot
  auto-detection for installation did not work if the source
  colorspace was not Rec. 709, and color conversion was affected
  if the 3D LUT was not installed via the madVR API (i.e. by not
  clicking the “Install 3D LUT” button, but choosing the 3D LUT
  manually in madVR's settings).
• [Minor] Downloads within DisplayCAL failed if the download
  directory didn't exist (regression of changes made in
  DisplayCAL 3.5, SVN revision 5081).
• [Minor] HDR 3D LUT SMPTE 2084 tonemapping for non-Rec. 2020
  source colorspaces did not work correctly (Rec. 2020 was
  assumed despite different choice).
• [Minor] Standalone 3D LUT maker: Don't unexpectedly switch to
  the source profile's gamma for simple gamma + matrix source
  profiles (e.g. DCI P3) when creating a 3D LUT.

• [Feature] Adjustable weighting between luminance and saturation
  preservation for HDR SMPTE 2084 3D LUTs with roll-off
  tonemapping.
• [Feature] Option to adjust the roll-off for HDR SMPTE 2084 3D
  LUTs with roll-off tonemapping when the mastering display peak
  luminance is below 10000 cd/m² (previous behavior with the
  introduction of BT.2390-2 was to always adjust, the new default
  behavior is don't adjust).
• [Enhancement] Improved HDR 3D LUT SMPTE 2084 roll-off
  tonemapping to eliminate possible over-darkening in rolled-off
  highlights due to luminance reduction related effects.
• [Enhancement] Removed HDR 3D LUT SMPTE 2084 roll-off
  tonemapping allowance for hue shifts in rolled-off highlights.
• [Enhancement] Increased HDR 3D LUT SMPTE 2084 default target
  peak luminance to 480 cd/m² (makes BT.2390 roll-off leave 0-100
  cd/m² alone).
• [Enhancement] Use extended model for HDR 3D LUT Hybrid-Log
  Gamma (HLG) display gamma adjustment described in BT.2390-4.
• [Enhancement] Do not create PCS-to-device tables for synthetic
  HDR SMPTE 2084 profiles with roll-off tonemapping as they are
  meant purely as source profiles.
• [Enhancement] Only enable the visual whitepoint editor button
  if the whitepoint target is set to chromaticity coordinates.
• [UI] Keep dropdowns with only one choice enabled.
• [Cosmetic] Catch any madTPG connection errors to show a nicer
  error dialog without a traceback.
• [Trivial] Do not update the profile description when increasing
  the effective resolution of an existing profile's PCS-to-device
  tables.
• [Trivial] Testchart editor: Only limit the view to six decimal
  digits, not the underlying data.
• [Minor] Confirm instrument placement when madTPG is not
  fullscreen.
• [Minor] Creating synthetic grayscale profiles with HLG tone
  response did not work correctly.
• [Trivial] Set allowed filetypes for selecting files when
  importing 3rd party software colorimeter corrections to “any”.
• [UI] (GTK3 under Wayland)Explicit refresh/update needed for
  ClientDC (fixes graphs not updating until the window is
  resized).

• [Feature] Rudimentary ICCv4 profile autoconversion support
  (only matrix profile types)
• [Enhancement] Lookup table based test profiles for evaluating
  display color management
• [Enhancement] Profile information: Ability to plot CMYK profile
  tone response curves
• [Feature] Profile loader (Windows): Tray icon animation toggle
• [Enhancement] HDR SMPTE 2084 roll-off 3D LUT: Improved tone
  mapping
• [Enhancement] Slightly improved accuracy of XYZ LUT profile
  CIECAM02 gamut mapping
• Temporarily restored compatibility with wxPython 2.8.11/12
• [Minor] Restored ability to create profiles from non RGB device
  measurement files
• [Minor] Profile information: Deal with potential NULL values in
  meta tags of 3rd party ICC profiles
• [Trivial] Profile information: Correctly parse non-default
  device media type attributes
• [Trivial] Profile information: Keep original tag order of 3rd
  party profiles when checking ID
• [Minor] Profile loader (Windows): Popup menu items stopped
  responding when used for a long time