How to apply color management to the Windows 7 mouse cursor?

Question

I have been using the Sypder 3 colorimiter and Datacolor Spyder3Elite software to calibrate my screen for several years now. The Sypder3 does wonders, and really improves the quality of my on-screen color representation.

There is one little annoyance, however, and I am curious if anyone else has encountered this. I calibrate my screen to a D50 white point (5000k), as it more closely matches the fine art papers I most often print on. The windows mouse cursor, however, is a very stark, bright white with a tinge of blue (7300k or so), like a glossy photo paper with copious amounts of optical brightener. I'm a little confused as to why my mouse cursor doesn't follow the white point of my monitor's color profile.

Has anyone else encountered this? Is there a way to fix it?

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate

Answer 1

This has bothered me for years, especially on laptop screens that have no hardware calibration option. Here's an instant fix:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse]
"MouseTrails"="-1"

Save that as a .reg, merge it and then Log Off/On.

With mouse trails enabled windows uses a different render for the cursor which in turn applies the color correction. The original problem is that the ICC profile was not being applied to the mouse cursor and was causing it to "stand out" (read the first post again). With this setting, the profile will be applied.

Setting HKCU\Control Panel\Mouse\MouseTrails to -1 turns on mouse trails but sets the trail length to zero. The -1 works on Windows 7 with Nvidia drivers; I have not tested it with other OS/Video combinations.

Possible values for the setting include:

-1 = A buggy setting that seems to enable the cursor trail render but has no actual trails
0  = Off
1  = Also equals off
2  = Lowest you can actually set the trail length in the control panel
10 = Default length

Answer 2

Yes, I have a Spyder 2, and I experience the same on all screens that I have calibrated, although not as strongly as you as I calibrate to 6500K. As the mouse cursor is drawn using a hardware sprite rather than drawn as regular graphics, if the graphics hardware supports it, it's not affected by the color profile.

You might consider changing the color temperature of the monitor closer to 5000K before calibrating, if it supports it. That would make the cursor stand out less, and it would also result in a color profile that makes better use of the dynamic range of the monitor.

Answer 3

This is just a guess, but the cursor is often shoveled in by the hardware. It would seem it's not the OS drawing it but something later in the stack of software and hardware that draws the complete screen image, and that something happens after the colors are adjusted to match your calibration. (This is the same reason the cursor often doesn't show up in screenshots.)

In terms of a fix, you could try crafting a copy of the cursor image which is oranger than you want (perhaps photograph the cursor on top of calibrated white to estimate the compensation needed) and set the cursor to that image.

Or, there is a low-vision mode which makes the cursor humongous. Try that for a while, and it will seem so godawful that the normal cursor will be acceptable in comparison. :)

Answer 4

You don't say what operating system you're using but assuming it's Windows I would recommend using RealWorld Cursor Editor to create yourself a custom cursor.

http://www.rw-designer.com/cursor-maker

It's freeware and will allow you to design a dimmer cursor with a custom colour that will appear white on your monitor. If you're familiar with Photoshop or similar image editing software you'll find it easy to use.

addendum:

It's just occurred to me that if you set the monitor to 5000K (or as close as you can get) using the monitor's own menu before calibrating, the software won't have to shift the colours as much, and the mouse pointer should more closely match the colours being sent for the rest of the desktop!