alt Hacker NewsMacOS does wash out SDR content in HDR mode specifically on non-Apple monitors. An HDR video playing in windowed mode will look fine but all the UI around it has black and white levels very close to grey.
Edit: to be clear, macOS itself (Cocoa elements) is all SDR content and thus washed out.
Replies
Starmina • last Friday at 10:10 PM
That's intended behavior for monitor limited in peak brightness
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robflynn • last Saturday at 3:16 AM
Oh, that explains why it looked so odd when I enabled HDR on my Studio.
adastra22 • last Friday at 10:16 PM
Huh, so that’s why HDR looks like shit on my Mac Studio.
Define "washed out"?
The white and black levels of the UX are supposed to stay in SDR. That's a feature not a bug.
If you mean the interface isn't bright enough, that's intended behavior.
If the black point is somehow raised, then that's bizarre and definitely unintended behavior. And I honestly can't even imagine what could be causing that to happen. It does seem like that it would have to be a serious macOS bug.
You should post a photo of your monitor, comparing a black #000 image in Preview with a pitch-black frame from a video. People edit HDR video on Macs, and I've never heard of this happening before.