Help me understand Krita display profiles

Tech Support General Questions
1

I’m using the Krita 5 beta under Linux Mint 20.

I’m concerned that my display colour profile is being applied twice: in Krita and by the OS.

I’ve created ICC profiles for my display with a colorimeter. I’ve loaded these profiles in the “Color” application provided by Linux mint.

It’s my understanding that I’m also supposed to load these profiles under Krita’s display colour management. (Configure Krita > Color Management > Display). I’ve done this manually as the “use system profile” checkbox loads the profiles the wrong way around (Monitor A gets monitor B’s profile and vice versa).

I recall asking about this and being told by, I think, @halla that Krita would override the OS colour management. At least that was my understanding, this was a while ago. My concern is, this does not seem to be the case. Instead, I suspect the profile is now being applied twice, because if I switch profiles on the OS side, in the Color application, the image displayed by Krita also changes.

So just to be 100% clear, where should I be loading my profiles? If I’m loading them on the OS side, should I just be using a generic sRGB profile as my Display profile in Krita?

2

Hi

If i’m right:

  • when applied at OS level, color profile is applied on screen(s) (you can have like me different color profile for different screens) and finally for all displayed windows you’ll have a correct color profile (example: colors are correct on your browser)
  • when applied at Krita level, for what I understand, it’s applied on canvas.

So having color profile on Krita and OS means:

  • Krita’s canvas is displayed with color profile
  • Entire screen is displayed with color profile
    So for canvas, it’s finally applied twice.

Finally:

  • If you apply profile in Krita, don’t apply it on OS.
  • If apply it on OS, don’t apply it on Krita.

But I’m not an expert and I may be wrong in my comprehension of the subject, especially for the Krita’s part

Grum999

3

Yes, @Grum999 is correct. If the window manager applies the screen profile to all windows, Krita’s display profile should be set to the image profile, otherwise you get a double correction.

4

OK, thank you! That’s what I would expect, but I wanted to be sure.

Perhaps the manual could be amended to mention this? I’m sure a lot of users are not very clear on what to do with their display profiles.

5

Interesting. In macOS it seems that the OS loads the profile and also other programs like image preview use the monitor profile, but Krita does not. If I want an image to look the same in krita like in the OS, I have to copy the monitor profile to the resources folder so I can select it as the display profile. Then all images in macOS look the same as in krita. And every exported image looks same in image preview from macOS. Unless the reference looks different, I have also made a topic but have not yet received an answer.

6

I also was under the impression that you need to keep your Krita color profile in sync with system display profile.

7

It depends: some linux window managers apply the profile to the windows. That sort of sucks, but some window manager developers thinks it’s the correct way. Other window managers, and on macOS and Windows, the “system” display profile isn’t applied by the system, but retrieved by the applications that need it. (Or, in the case of krita on macOS and Windows, you need to manually select that in the color management settings.)