Colour balance on MBPro 2017 is wrong. Colours too dark. How do I get it lighter?

Question

Colour balance on MBPro 2017 is wrong. Colours too dark. How do I get it lighter?

How do I get it lighter? I can't even read the small print on Apple menu About this Mac. Grey print too dark to read. Photos require me to turn brightness to max to be able to see the content. The colour balance is wrong too. How do I lighten the photos etc? I messed up the balance when trying to make things easier from my old eyes on Accessibility and where you have those colour pencils and red blue green balance. Can one restore the factory criteria? Or get those pencils etc back to the right selection?

MacBook Pro 15″, macOS 13.7

Gepostet am 03. Sept. 2026 10:12

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Answer 1

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PreCognition

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03. Sept. 2026 20:49 als Antwort auf anneliese289

The “colored pencils” you remember are under System Settings > Accessibility > Display > Color Filters. Apple uses those pencils to show what the selected color filter is doing.

Since this partition looks different from the others, I’d first turn Color Filters off completely. Also make sure Invert Colors and Increase Contrast are off. That should get you back to the normal display colors if one of those Accessibility settings was changed.

If it still looks wrong, go to System Settings > Displays > Color Profile and select the recommended/default profile for the built-in display rather than a custom calibrated profile.

I’d try those before doing any more color calibration. Since your other partitions display normally, this sounds much more like a setting on this macOS installation than a problem with the screen itself.

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Answer 2

03. Sept. 2026 10:41 als Antwort auf anneliese289

Hallo Anneliese,

du hast mehrere Möglichkeiten die Helligkeit zu ändern: die Helligkeit auf deinem MBP korrigierst du

in den Systemeinstellungen deines Macs, entweder hier:

oder auch

2 im Kontrollzentrum:

oder mit den F1 oder F2 Tasten.

Und: gerne kannst du hier in unserer Community in deutscher Sprache posten. Das hat den Vorteil, dass dich andere ebenfalls finden oder auch, dass die Suchfunktion deinen Beitrag für andere anzeigen kann.

VG

Christine

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Answer 3

03. Sept. 2026 16:57 als Antwort auf christine33

Thank you for taking the trouble to answer. The problem is I know all that. I have the MBpro now on full brightness with those controls for the past month or so. The problem lies I think in the colour mixture which I altered on this partition. The colours are very different to those on the other two partitions. They are darker, with a lot of photos showing areas of black that make them difficult to understand. That is not so on the other partitions where we don't have to turn the brightness up to maximum at all. Somehow I need to alter the proportion of the three dominant colours red, blue and the other one. They are to be found where the coloured crayons are, but clicking there you find a bar where you can regulate those colours. BTW I am not Anneliese, but her husband. She is ill, and in any case she has always given the job of mending or altering this computer to me, as she knows nothing about the works of computers. I've had macs for 35 years, though I'm no expert on the modern machines that are far more complex. Nor am I German. I read the language in newspapers, listen to the telly here, but computer technics are now a bit beyond me in German. I need to use English, particularly as the menus on this machine are all in English. Only the keyboard is in German (for my wife). I asked for this help to be in English, but every time some Apple system switched over to German against my expressed wish. So I seem to have ended on a German Apple help board.

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Answer 4

03. Sept. 2026 17:08 als Antwort auf anneliese289

I would guess that some new AI (KI) system is now seeing that this machine is in Germany, so the Help switches over to German. That did not happen in the past, when I could access the Anglo community.

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Answer 5

04. Sept. 2026 10:58 als Antwort auf anneliese289

"I asked for this help to be in English, but every time some Apple system switched over to German against my expressed wish. "

It is nuisance, isn't it? When I try to open the bookmark for a knowledge base article written in English, it will open in German, also the user guides, even with the system language set to English US.

Have you tried to use a VPN to hide your location?

Is the system version given below your question still valid? MacOS Ventura?

Try this page in the user guide: Change your Mac display’s colour profile – Apple Support (MY)

Also: If your Mac display doesn’t look right – Apple Support (MY)

When I try to read English support documents in Germany, I am switching the language of the user guide to some African or asian country, for example Egypt or Malaysia. Then the language will not revert to German, when I step to the next page of the document.

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Answer 6

05. Sept. 2026 14:08 als Antwort auf PreCognition

Thank you so much PreCognition. Your recommendations really solved the problem. And when I selected a different Color Profile after turning the other calibrations off, it made a world of difference. The dark shadows disappeared and I could see again what was there but had been obscured. I chose LCD but several of the other profiles I tested out later worked pretty well too.

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Answer 7

05. Sept. 2026 14:28 als Antwort auf anneliese289

You’re very welcome, and thank you for letting me know. I’m really glad to hear that the suggestions helped and that changing the color profile made such a noticeable difference.

It sounds like the display settings on that particular macOS installation were indeed the cause rather than anything being wrong with the screen itself.

For what it’s worth, on my own 16-inch MacBook Pro I use the “Apple XDR Display (P3-1600 nits)” profile and have been very happy with it. That said, the best profile is ultimately the one that looks right to you and gives you good detail in both the shadows and highlights.

I’m glad you found a setup that works well for you, and thanks again for coming back to share the result. That may also help others who run into a similar issue.

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Answer 8

03. Sept. 2026 17:34 als Antwort auf anneliese289

You can access the US Community by using this URL: Official Apple Support Community.

It works even if you are based in Germany.

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Answer 9

03. Sept. 2026 18:44 als Antwort auf Netcracker

Nutcracker. Many thanks for the US link.

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