Measure the calibration of your MacBook Pro with Liquid Retina XDR display, Apple Studio Display, or Apple Pro Display XDR

Learn how to measure the calibration of your display. Depending on the needs of your workflow, you can also fine-tune the calibration or perform in-field recalibration on your display.

• Measure your display

• Customize the calibration

• Tips for measuring and calibrating your display

Every MacBook Pro, Studio Display, and Pro Display XDR undergoes a state-of-the-art factory display calibration process on the assembly line to ensure the accuracy of the P3 wide color panel and LEDs.

The factory display calibration process lets users enjoy an exceptional viewing experience out of the box. If your workflow requires custom calibration, you can fine-tune the calibration of your display, or recalibrate it for a workflow tuned to a third-party spectroradiometer.

Measure your display

You can use a set of QuickTime movie test patterns from Apple to evaluate the calibration of your display. These appropriately color-tagged references allow you to use your in-house spectroradiometer to measure and verify the color primaries/secondaries and luminance including the electro-optical transfer function (EOTF).

Check compatibility

• For 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro, make sure that your Mac is using macOS 14 or later.

• For Studio Display, make sure that your Mac is using macOS 13.3 or later and your display uses Studio Display Firmware Update 16.4.

• For Pro Display XDR, make sure that your Mac is using macOS 10.15.6 or later and your display uses Display Firmware 4.2.37.

Download test patterns

1. Go to the AVFoundation Developer Page.

2. In the Related Resources section, click Color Test Patterns to download the test files.

3. Double-click the QuickTime-Test-Pattern.zip file to decompress the archive.

Measure the display

1. Align the third-party spectroradiometer to the center of the display.

2. Make sure the room is dim or dark to prevent stray light or glare from affecting the measurements.

3. Open the QuickTime Test Pattern Movies folder and choose the set of patterns that you want to test. Each folder contains sequences of movie files for measuring color or luminance in configurations such as BT.709 and BT.601.

4. Open each file in QuickTime Player and measure each test pattern movie file in the folder. Make sure that the reference preset currently in use matches the chosen test pattern. For example, use the Digital Cinema (P3–DCI) mode when using the DCI SDR-based patterns.

5. Compare the color (chromaticity) and luminance values you measured to those in the Reference Values.txt file in the test pattern’s folder. Depending on the tolerance or calibration of your spectroradiometer, there may be some variation in readings relative to the reference values.

If your measurements vary significantly from the reference values, get tips for measuring your display.

Customize the calibration

For more advanced workflows, you can make the following adjustments:

• Fine-tune the calibration of your display to align to a specific target.

• Use Visual Fine Tune for quick adjustments to visually match other displays.

• Use Full Calibration to recalibrate your display using a spectroradiometer.*

Tips for measuring and calibrating your display

If you aren't getting consistent results measuring and calibrating your display, learn what to do.

Check your environment

• Control the ambient environment to minimize stray light reflecting onto the aperture target area on the display.

• Apple recommends measuring and calibrating in an environment with ambient temperatures of 77 degrees fahrenheit or cooler. For the most repeatable results, ambient temperatures should be similar during calibration and in typical use.

Check the setup of your spectroradiometer

• Make sure the display has warmed up for at least 30 minutes and is thermally stable.

• Orient the meter so that it's perpendicular with the display and level on the x-axis to minimize polarization.

• Check your meter’s exposure setting. If your meter has an auto-exposure mode, turn it on—this optimizes readings at various luminance levels. If your meter doesn’t have an auto exposure mode, check with the instrument's manufacturer for recommended settings. Review configuration options for positing and focal distance, aperture, bandwidth, exposure, measurement speed, display sync, and any automatic or dynamic features your instrument may have.

• Check if your meter has an integration time setting. Use a longer integration time when possible for a more accurate result.

• If your meter has an auto neutral-density (ND) filter setting, turn it off.

Check the calibration of your spectroradiometer

Check the manufacturer’s specifications to determine your spectroradiometer’s tolerance. Observed variance may result from any of the following conditions:

• Different instrument calibrations that use different incidences of illuminant A.

• Uncertainty inherent in each individual illuminant A.

• Different instrument hardware design and optical pathways, resulting in different inherited errors.

Reset the spectroradiometer

If your instrument becomes unresponsive, contact the manufacturer for instructions on how to reset the spectroradiometer.

Learn more

Learn about the macOS reference presets included with your display.