Webcam Video Color Issue - Latitude 9430

This may sound odd, but in Windows 10 the place where Microsoft buried many webcam settings is in Skype application. You may by default have Skype installed. If not, install it.

Launch Skype. Your exact path/steps may differ somewhat as I am on Win10, perhaps with a different Skype version from you, and I am using the installed application rather than the MS Store app. In mine, you would reach the settings via this path:

Skype | Settings | Audio & Video | Webcam settings

I don't know if those settings will be persistent in Windows 11, but in Windows 10 they are.

This did NOT work. We do not have Skype installed for our business. We are a Teams shop. We installed Skype for desktop application to test this process. If we change the webcam settings, it only keeps the settings until we close Skype. Every time Skype closes, the webcam settings (including White Balance) resets to the auto defaults. So this is not a solutions.

To have a Microsoft Teams meeting, my users have to: 
* Open Teams Settings
* Go to Devices
* Scroll Down
* Open Camera Settings
* Go to Video Proc Amp tab
* Uncheck Auto White Balance
* Change slider White Balance to 3500 
* Uncheck Auto Gamma
* Change slider Gamma to 150
* Click OK
* Then go run their meeting. HOWEVER if the meeting runs over 20min or so, it changes all the settings back to default in the middle of your video meeting. So the effort above was useless.

This is a really big deal. We don't want the opposing team, other, etc. to think we are angry (because of all the red faces) or obscuring the camera quality on purpose (because of all the massive yellow tones). 

Have the same problem on my 9430 (win11). Though I find leaving the gamma as is, but putting saturation at -20 and Hue at +5 to give the best results (but yes, the auto white balance doesn't work at all). The Teams setting does seem to also change the settings for other apps like Zoom. I haven't noticed the reset after 20 min, but it does reset after the machine has been asleep.

Auto white balance seems to work fine for my external Logitech camera when I plug that in (without installing any logitech software). So, I'm guessing either a hardware or driver problem?

We opened a ticket with Dell. They've closed it twice. We're still trying to get Dell to push this to the developers to see if it's hardware or driver. 

On another note, Microsoft Win 10 doesn't allow you save the settings for white balance anymore. They admitted today that it's a flaw and they will address with an upcoming OS update soon. But, Dell needs to fix the default and automatic settings soon. 

I am having the exact same problem with my brand new Latitude 9430.  I show up very red on camera and the walls look yellow.  I've tried all of the suggestions but the manual video settings I set when going to Skype For Business -> Settings -> Video -> Camera Settings -> Video Proc Amp -> Saturation -30, Hue +5 always resets back to the default after closing the options window.

I'm really hoping for a fix from Microsoft or Dell as I look like a tomato on all of my professional business calls with clients/partners/vendors/colleagues and it's quite embarrassing. 

Hello,

It is looking like you're experiencing some color issues with the built-in webcam on your Dell Latitude 9430 laptops. Even though you have the latest drivers and have tried adjusting the camera settings, the color balance is still off and the camera is not performing as expected.

One thing you can try is to disable the "TrueColor" feature in the Dell PremierColor application. This feature may be automatically adjusting the color balance, which could be causing the issues you're experiencing. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Open the Dell PremierColor application.
2. Click on the "Display" tab.
3. Under "Color Accuracy," toggle the switch for "TrueColor" to the off position.
4. Close the application and try using the camera again.

If disabling TrueColor doesn't help, you can also try adjusting the lighting conditions in the room. As you mentioned, you have a variety of lighting sources, which can affect the color balance of the camera. You can try turning off or adjusting the intensity of certain lights to see if that helps.

Another option is to use an external webcam with your laptops. There are many good quality webcams available that can provide better color accuracy than built-in laptop webcams.

If none of these suggestions work, I recommend contacting Dell support for further assistance with this issue. They may be able to provide additional troubleshooting steps or replace the laptops if the cameras are found to be defective.

I hope this will help you!

After installing the Dell PremierColor Application, I get an error that it doesn't support this system configuration on my Latitude 9430 when opening it:

We don't have Dell Premier Color application installed and installing it does not help. I also do not think buying external cameras for 112 Dell laptops when I already bought the laptops with cameras is the answer. Since my previous 112 Dell laptops of a prior Latitude model worked in our typical office lighting I expect Dell's newer 9430 laptops to auto adjust and do the same. 

This is obviously a vendor driver issue. The new laptops are listed on their website with these super powerful awesome cameras for immersive online meetings - yet everyone looks red faced angry with yellow walls. Dell needs to step up and fix the driver to better auto adjust the white balance and other coloring.

The customer should not be told to buy an external camera to solve the problem.

Can you confirm that this bug is open with Dell support so we can expect a fix in the near future?  We also purchased this laptop partly for it's high quality webcam, and now the webcam is useless with these color tinting issues.

I can confirm we have a ticket open with Dell Support, but so far no resolution has been promised or found. We bought 112 of these model and all are having the same issue. 

We heard from Dell support this is moved to tier 3 and they are testing their lab. 

Thanks for keeping us updated @DebbieIT .  Looking forward to a resolution to this.

The latest BIOS and camera driver seem to have some impact. After installing them, the auto white balance is correct _sometimes_, but then changes every few minutes to the old (yellow) settings and back again. Maybe it would work better in other lighting situations. (BIOS 1.13.1 released 13 April 2023 and driver 73.22000.0.13, A00).

I've tried ALL of the latest drivers on Dell website this week. After attending a zillion meetings (Teams, Zoom, GoTo) and playing with Windows Camera feature, I'm maybe not seeing any difference in the yellow tinge to the camera. People are generally too red/orange and the background is bright yellow most of the time. If we off all overhead lights and desk lamps, etc. and sit really close facing the window so we have full natural lighting, it's about 20% better. These better advanced cameras we all paid for are not worth the money. We still haven't had an update from Dell yet on their lab testing. 

Oddly enough, after the last bios/driver updates I did on April 25th my walls are even more yellow than before.  Using an external webcam (Logitech C920) works just fine and colors are all normal.  But we didn't pay a premium for a high quality laptop with a high quality webcam to lug around an external webcam.  I'm hoping they release a fix for this soon.