Color management of external display is broken?
One of the nice improvements of Windows 7 is the color management features. However, there seems to be a major issue when dealing with some configurations of multiple displays. When a second display is set to extended mode, color management seems to work fine. However, if you select "projector only" (I wish Windows didn't assume an external display must be a projector...) then things get weird: I'll use the example of my laptop. When I plug in an external monitor into the VGA port, if I select projector only as the display type, then under color management under devices both the laptop's display and the external display are present, but both have the monitor identifier "1|2" and if I click on the "identify" button the only active display (external) shows "1|2". If I select an .icm profile for the external display, it is not applied. If I select an .icm profile for the laptop display, it is applied to the external display. However, then if I unplug the external display the profile for the external display is applied to the laptop display. This also seems to affect third party programs. I use a Datacolor Spyder2 to calibrate my displays. It does have a utility to load different profiles but it appears to try and load the profile to the correct device (the external display) and therefore ends up doing nothing. Again, I should note that if I set up the external display as extended desktop, then each display gets a different identifier "1" or "2" and I can select and apply different profiles to each device and it all works as it should. But for some reason when I use the external display only, this doesn't work. Is there any way to properly assign (and load) color profiles to a laptops internal and external displays in anything other than extended mode? Thanks!
March 1st, 2010 11:52pm

Hi Magritte,Generally, when you selcet "projector only", the external monitor will replace the laptop monitor, so it's normal, the Wallpapers will leave on the laptop once it is disconnected. As your wish, we can try a tool DisplayFusion to set different Wallpapers on each Desktop in Win7, for more detail, you can refer to the following link: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/dual-monitors-use-a-different-wallpaper-on-each-desktop-in-vista-or-xp/ Hope this helps. John
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March 2nd, 2010 12:59pm

Hi, Sorry. I think you misunderstood my point. I'm not talking about wallpaper. I'm talking about using .icm color calibration files under color management to calibrate the colors of the display. Here's a link to a description of these features: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-CA/windows7/Change-color-management-settings In particular I'm talking about enabling calibration loading by Windows of the monitor's color profile. This can be done by eye using Windows new calibrate monitor option, or can be done using a hardware colorimeter (such as the spyder2 I use) with third party software to generate the color profile file, then loaded into the video card using Windows 7's new calibration loading feature. And this works fine with a single monitor or 2 monitors in extended desktop mode. What doesn't seem to work is a second (external monitor/"projector") in projector only mode. Instead of diferrentiating between the 2 physical displays, they are both labeled "1|2" rather than "1" and "2" and this seems to confuse both Windows own calibration loading feature as well as third party calibration loading utilities. I'm trying to figure out if this is a bug or just overly complicated and there's some way to work around it? If not, if maybe there is some way to automatically switch and reload color profiles on the fly when an external display is connected or disconnected. For instance, I find with projector only set as the display mode, if I connect an external display, the external display automatically takes the desktop and the laptop's display automatically goes dark. When I disconnect the cable, the reverse happens. Is there any way to automatically launch a script that would change the profile and reload when an external display is connected or disconnected? Thanks.
March 2nd, 2010 5:22pm

Magritte, Did you end up finding a solution to the problem? I'm having the same issue. John Cena obviously didn't read your post...sounds like a stock answer.
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May 9th, 2011 1:12am

Sorry, I never found an answer. I actually haven't tried this setup in a long time and forgot this issue existed. I was originally trying to use fix the colors on a TV but have found more convenient solutions for displaying content on my TV than plugging in my laptop. I do use my laptop for powerpoint presentations and the colors on the projector are generally off. I wonder if they're worse than they have to be because it's still using my internal display's profile. I'll have to look into that the next time I'm hooked up to a projector... I assume you're up to date on all the latest patches? If so, it's disappointing to learn this wasn't fixed in SP1. I suppose one workaround is to use extended display instead of projector only and make the external display the primary display. Of course there are scenarios in which this is not an appropriate solution.
May 9th, 2011 8:42pm

I'm gonna bump this thread! I have the same problem. I'm using 2 monitors and one actual projector. When using Extended the projector is diasbled, and when using Porjector both monitors are disabled.The projector gets one of the screens ICM and when switching back both screens have settings from somewhere else or no setting. I have the monitors profiles both as system defaults and as the only profiles, and still when switching back from PJ to Extended they are not in use. I have to manually change back, really annoying. So is there anyway you could make a batch script to set profiles? And then find the event number for switching back to extended, or something?
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November 2nd, 2011 8:03am

I'm running into this issue as well -- if I use extend for both displays (the laptop screen and my external monitor), color management is working just fine, no problems. But, if I try to use my external monitor only (selecting "Projector only"), Windows seems to think the laptop's ICM profile is the correct one to use. I can manually correct this and force the correct LUT (with dispcalGUI Profile Loader), but color-managed applications are using what Windows thinks is correct but is in fact incorrect. For example, Lightroom will clearly be using the laptop's ICM profile. A non-ideal workaround is to set the laptop's profile to be the same as my external monitor's if I'm prioritizing that, or, just using extend all the time rather than "Projector only". I think I'll have to go with the latter. Another issue is that plugging in my external monitor does not load the LUT, so I have to remember to do it manually.
June 6th, 2012 7:37pm

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