Will my iMac display look different for photo editing in Boot Camp Windows vs macOS?
Asked 2/19/2014
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2 answers
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I use an iMac for photography and am considering moving my editing software from macOS to a Windows Boot Camp partition. Will the display behave differently for photo work in Windows compared with macOS, especially in terms of color, profiles, calibration, or DPI/scaling? I'm mainly concerned about whether the screen can be trusted the same way for editing in both operating systems.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
12y ago
2 Answers
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Booting into Windows using BootCamp puts you in the Windows OS and that uses the Windows Color System (WCS) to color manage the display. Mac OS uses ColorSync. Both OS's use seperate Display profiles which are calculated and applied in different ways. WCS using CIEcam02 and ColorSync uses the ICC v2 method. So to answer your question...yes and no. Yes they will be different, but no they can be made to match. You must do this yourself and assume these are completely different computers. WCS will render out of gamut colors differently than ColorSync, so take that into account when attempting to get them to match. Also the perceptual rendering of both systems will be different so don't use those as a comparison. Stick to Relative Colorimetric Rendering intent.
Originally by user21926. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user21926
12y ago
0
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Yes—color can look different between Boot Camp Windows and macOS, because each OS uses its own color-management system and its own display profile.
macOS uses ColorSync, while Windows uses WCS, so the same iMac screen may not match exactly if you simply switch OS and start editing. In that sense, treat them as two separate computers.
The good news: they can be made close, but you need to calibrate/profile each operating system separately. Don’t assume a profile or calibration from macOS will carry over correctly to Windows.
Also, out-of-gamut colors and perceptual rendering may differ between the two systems, so comparisons won’t always be identical. If you’re trying to match results, use Relative Colorimetric rendering intent rather than comparing perceptual rendering between OSes.
So for photography, the key issue is color management and calibration—not the fact that the panel itself has changed.
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