Gnome Color Manager, To/From sRGB Tabs

Question

When I open gnome-color-manager, select a profile, and hit "View Details", there are two tabs labeled "From sRGB" and "To sRGB". I'm not sure exactly what these are, but I assume that you want them to be the same. Mine are very different, with the "From sRGB" looking about right and the "To sRGB" looking very dull and wrong.

I have a monitor that has been calibrated with the i1 Display Pro and dispcalgui. Why are these images so wrong?

I also notice that if I load a picture into Gimp and select to use the system color profile under color management, that is looks dull and incorrect (like "From sRGB" above). If I turn off the color management in Gimp, it looks more correct (like "To sRGB"). I don't know if these are related, but I'm thinking that they probably are.

Answer 1

My understanding is that you see differences, because the ICC profile you checked, is a correction profile. I use one I found on the Net, to fix my poorly calibrated DELL Inspiron LCD screen. Without it, I have issue with unnoticeable contrast. As the profile correct/fix the colors, the to/from sRGB tabs, shows different results.

The sRGB profile, is more and more the default profile, that is, it is assumed to be the profile of most of machines (computers, smart‑phone, etc) and even the default profile for images without a profile specified (and if the profile specified is sRGB, then no color correction should be applied before rendering to the screen which is supposed to be sRGB).

As output to screen is supposed to be to sRGB (hence, no RGB correction if it also is from sRGB), if instead of any profile, you open an sRGB profile, you will most likely see no or very little differences in both pictures.

You may check it downloading the profile provided here: sRGB Appearance profile (color.org). If you open-it with the color profile installer (don't worry, it will not install it unless you ask it to), click the “Show details” button then go to the to/from sRGB tabs, you will see both images are near to be the same (I can only see little differences on the water on the left).

In short, unless the profile you are inspecting, is a version of an sRGB profile (there are multiple versions), you will see a difference.