Add color inversion to color table adjustments (that is compatible with software dimming) + CLI

[axelvugts]

I've been using this great tool for a while now on my MBP (late 2016, 15", Monterey) and the brightness control worked like a charm! However, I recently upgraded to a 16" MBP (2022, Ventura) and now the software dimming feature no longer works as expected.

When software dimming is engaged, a white layer is projected over the screen, instead of a dark one. The lower the brightness setting, the more white the screen gets. This is probably caused by the Inverted Colours feature in macOS that I use. When I disable inverted colours, software dimming works as expected.
The weird thing is that software dimming worked just fine in combination with inverted colours on my Intel Mac running Monterey.

So, would it be possible to also invert the "dimming layer" colour, when inverted colours is enabled?

[waydabber]

Indeed, with Apple Silicon, inversion seems to affect the color table (the app by default does not use a dimming layer). Until this is improved, you can use Color Adjustments to somewhat further dim the display.

[axelvugts]

It's a shame really, I was hoping to benefit from the extra XDR brightness of the built-in display but the same problem happens there as well. So the only option for now is full XDR brightness or "standard" non-XDR brightness for now :)

[waydabber]

Right. I plan fix this in an upcoming version or if not possible then add an inversion filter to Color Adjustments.

[waydabber]

Framebuffer inversion (#2745) cannot properly support software (and Apple hardware) dimming it seems so I need to add inversion as an option to color controls.

(note: system accessibility invert uses the framebuffer method).

[waydabber]

[axelvugts]

That's awesome! Does this mean that I can keep using the built-in (Smart) Inverted Colours feature while this mode is enabled? Smart inverted colours comes with some cool freebies such as un-inverted images in Safari :)

[waydabber]

No, sadly this invert is a separate implementation from smart invert, will simply invert everything.

[waydabber]

CLI examples:

betterdisplaycli toggle -inverted
betterdisplaycli set -namelike=MyDisplay -inverted=on
betterdisplaycli get -namelike=MyDisplay1,MyDisplay2 -inverted