Color management and soft proofing

[dziadekles]

I like the new incarnation of GIMP very, very much 
But there are some things which maybe could be clarified for me by more experienced users (I am new to GIMP, tried the previous versions and found them difficult ad somewhat confusing, but this one is really good - from the GUI perspective at least). I used Photoshop extensively in the past - and converted to GIMP after ADOBE decided to cancel my "lifetime" license (comp crashed, lost Photoshop, couldn't re-install as the license servers are off-line).

1) COLOR MANAGEMENT (GIMP 3.0.2)
-The way I understand it, monitor profile is specified in Edit - Preferences - Color Management - Monitor profile. Selecting the monitor profile here will affect the image view in the main window (yes/no). Currently I see no difference between calibrated and uncalibrated monitor (but the profile created with i1 Pro wasn't much different from the manufacturer profile anyway, so maybe this is OK. My monitor was spot-on straight out of the box BTW).

-There is no option for specifying printer profile anywhere (yes/no). Printer profile (paper) is specified in the printer setup (yes/no)

2) SOFT PROOFING
I am a bit confused here.
-'View - Color Management - Proof Colors (on/off)' appears to just activate the option for soft proofing in 'Image - Color Management - Soft proof Profile'. This seems to be somewhat redundant, as by default the option in 'Image - Color Management - Soft proof Profile' is set to "None". Selecting any profile other than "None" should activate soft proofing. IMHO this redundancy should be removed, as it is confusing and superfluous.

-It would be nice if it was possible to remove profiles from the list. Currently GIMP remembers all the profiles selected in any Color Management. Selection of the profile is done by either LEFT or RIGHT mouse click on a profile in the list. Why ? It would be nice if the right click enabled removal of the profile from the list instead of selecting it. Otherwise the list will be a kilometer long (OK, I am exaggerating, but still...)

[rich2005]

(04-12-2025, 11:47 AM)dziadekles Wrote: ...snip....
1) COLOR MANAGEMENT (GIMP 3.0.2)
-The way I understand it, monitor profile is specified in Edit - Preferences - Color Management - Monitor profile. Selecting the monitor profile here will affect the image view in the main window (yes/no). Currently I see no difference between calibrated and uncalibrated monitor (but the profile created with i1 Pro wasn't much different from the manufacturer profile anyway, so maybe this is OK. My monitor was spot-on straight out of the box BTW).

-There is no option for specifying printer profile anywhere (yes/no). Printer profile (paper) is specified in the printer setup (yes/no)

Trying to keep things concise:
If you have calibrated your monitor and you can not see any difference, are you able to compare the monitor display with a standard chart. Other wise how do you know what is correct ? I am not at all sure that Gimp 3.0 respects whatever someprofile.icm is used.

Printer profile paper, surely that is the Image -> Color Management -> Soft-Proof Profile which in Gimp 3 will enable an export as a CMYK image and a tick box for keeping the profile. You can check that last one in Krita http://www.krita.org which supports both RGB & CMYK. Pity it does not have a print function, maybe the Krita devs have a point there.

Quote:2) SOFT PROOFING
I am a bit confused here.
-'View - Color Management - Proof Colors (on/off)' appears to just activate the option for soft proofing in 'Image - Color Management - Soft proof Profile'. This seems to be somewhat redundant, as by default the option in 'Image - Color Management - Soft proof Profile' is set to "None". Selecting any profile other than "None" should activate soft proofing. IMHO this redundancy should be removed, as it is confusing and superfluous.

There is redundancy in the Gimp menus (for all sorts of things) I have color management turned off in Edit -> Preferences and apply on an image by-image-basis but that is a hang-over from earlier Gimps

Quote:-It would be nice if it was possible to remove profiles from the list. Currently GIMP remembers all the profiles selected in any Color Management. Selection of the profile is done by either LEFT or RIGHT mouse click on a profile in the list. Why ? It would be nice if the right click enabled removal of the profile from the list instead of selecting it. Otherwise the list will be a kilometer long (OK, I am exaggerating, but still...)

The profiles are saved in your Gimp User profile, the text file profilerc This is mine. If you rename that as a backup Gimp will make a new empty default.

Code:

# GIMP color profile history

(color-profile "ISO Coated" "/home/rich/gimp210/icc/cmyk/ISOcoated.icc")
(color-profile "SWOP2006_Coated3v2.icc" "/home/rich/gimp210/icc/cmyk/SWOP2006_Coated3v2.icc")
(color-profile "Apple RGB" "/home/rich/gimp210/icc/rgb/AppleRGB.icc")
(color-profile "ColorMatch RGB" "/home/rich/gimp210/icc/rgb/ColorMatchRGB.icc")
(color-profile "Autochrome" "/home/rich/gimp210/icc/rgb/Autochrome.icc")

# end of color profile history

You can see, I keep the actual files in a separate folder, far more in that folder than required, accumulated over several years, but nothing to do with Gimp. Although it might be different in Windows.

[dziadekles]

(Yesterday, 08:22 AM)rich2005 Wrote:

(04-12-2025, 11:47 AM)dziadekles Wrote: ...snip....
1) COLOR MANAGEMENT (GIMP 3.0.2)
-The way I understand it, monitor profile is specified in Edit - Preferences - Color Management - Monitor profile. Selecting the monitor profile here will affect the image view in the main window (yes/no). Currently I see no difference between calibrated and uncalibrated monitor (but the profile created with i1 Pro wasn't much different from the manufacturer profile anyway, so maybe this is OK. My monitor was spot-on straight out of the box BTW).

-There is no option for specifying printer profile anywhere (yes/no). Printer profile (paper) is specified in the printer setup (yes/no)  

Trying to keep things concise:
If you have calibrated your monitor and you can not see any difference, are you able to compare the monitor display with a standard chart.  Other wise how do you know what is correct ?  I am not at all sure that Gimp 3.0 respects whatever someprofile.icm is used.

Printer profile paper, surely that is the Image -> Color Management -> Soft-Proof Profile  which in Gimp 3 will enable an export   as a CMYK image and a tick box for keeping the profile. You can check that last one in Krita http://www.krita.org which supports both RGB & CMYK.  Pity it does not have a print function, maybe the Krita devs have a point there.

Quote:2) SOFT PROOFING
I am a bit confused here.
-'View - Color Management - Proof Colors (on/off)' appears to just activate the option for soft proofing in 'Image - Color Management - Soft proof Profile'. This seems to be somewhat redundant, as by default the option in 'Image - Color Management - Soft proof Profile' is set to "None". Selecting any profile other than "None" should activate soft proofing. IMHO this redundancy should be removed, as it is confusing and superfluous.

There is redundancy in the Gimp menus (for all sorts of things) I have color management turned off in Edit -> Preferences and apply on an image by-image-basis but that is a hang-over from earlier Gimps

Quote:-It would be nice if it was possible to remove profiles from the list. Currently GIMP remembers all the profiles selected in any Color Management. Selection of the profile is done by either LEFT or RIGHT mouse click on a profile in the list. Why ? It would be nice if the right click enabled removal of the profile from the list instead of selecting it. Otherwise the list will be a kilometer long (OK, I am exaggerating, but still...)

The profiles are saved in your Gimp User profile, the text file profilerc  This is mine.  If you rename that as a backup Gimp will make a new empty default.

Code:

# GIMP color profile history

(color-profile "ISO Coated" "/home/rich/gimp210/icc/cmyk/ISOcoated.icc")
(color-profile "SWOP2006_Coated3v2.icc" "/home/rich/gimp210/icc/cmyk/SWOP2006_Coated3v2.icc")
(color-profile "Apple RGB" "/home/rich/gimp210/icc/rgb/AppleRGB.icc")
(color-profile "ColorMatch RGB" "/home/rich/gimp210/icc/rgb/ColorMatchRGB.icc")
(color-profile "Autochrome" "/home/rich/gimp210/icc/rgb/Autochrome.icc")

# end of color profile history

You can see, I keep the actual files in a separate folder, far more in that folder than required, accumulated over several years, but nothing to do with Gimp.  Although it might be different in Windows.

Thanks for the response    .

I think I need to explain myself a little bit better.
The monitor is not the problem here. It was calibrated by ACER and I checked it with I1 Pro spectrophotometer. The corrections were miniscule, so I left it as is (no monitor profile).

My question was related to the general principle of how GIMP works with profiles. 
My current understanding is as follows:

-monitor profile can be set either in Widows settings (in which case all applications, including GIMP) will be affected, or it can be set in GIMP preferences (in which case only GIMP will see color managed image). Monitor profile should NOT be set in both (WINDOWS and GIMP), as this will double-dip, with uncertain consequences.
*********************************************************************
EDIT: selecting monitor profile in Windows settings appears to affect only the image display in Windows Photos, but not in GIMP. GIMP image remains unaffected unless monitor profile is selected in GIMP's preferences.
*********************************************************************

-printer profile is used only for soft-proofing in GIMP, to show out-of-gamut areas, but GIMP can't specify any printer profiles for use in printing. This is done directly in the printer driver. I hope I got it right...

-thanks for the tip regarding the PROLIFERC file. I deleted all info from there. But it is a pity that GIMP offers only such pedestrian option: right-click on the profile should enable the "Delete" option for the profile, instead of selecting it (which already can be done with the left mouse click). Oh well...

Until now I have been using color managed workflow in Photoshop. But...my comp died, got the new one, installed Photoshop from a CD ("lifetime" license, yeah...) - at which point I was informed that the license servers have been taken off-line, so I can stick my license (for which I paid good money) where the sun doesn't shine.
Hence, I am trying to learn GIMP as fast as I can, and every bit of info helps - so thanks again.

[rich2005]

Quote:....-printer profile is used only for soft-proofing in GIMP, to show out-of-gamut areas, but GIMP can't specify any printer profiles for use in printing. This is done directly in the printer driver. I hope I got it right...[

If you specify a profile something.icc for soft proofing then export as a tiff, there is an option to save the profile.
As far as I know, that works and is used for printing.

   

I can check using Imagemagick command line magick -identify verbose filename.tiff

Which might include a section like this

Code:

Profiles:
   Profile-icc: 2747952 bytes
 Properties:
   date:create: 2025-04-13T08:02:11+00:00
   date:modify: 2025-04-13T08:02:11+00:00
   date:timestamp: 2025-04-13T10:30:15+00:00
   icc:copyright: Copyright X-Rite, Inc.. This profile is made available by IDEAlliance, with permission of X-Rite, Inc., and may be used, embedded, exchanged, and shared without restriction.  It may not be altered, or sold without written permission of IDEAlliance.
   icc:description: SWOP2006_Coated3v2.icc

[dziadekles]

(Yesterday, 10:39 AM)rich2005 Wrote:

Quote:....-printer profile is used only for soft-proofing in GIMP, to show out-of-gamut areas, but GIMP can't specify any printer profiles for use in printing. This is done directly in the printer driver. I hope I got it right...[

If you specify a profile something.icc for soft proofing then export as a tiff, there is an option to save the profile.
As far as I know, that works and is used for printing.



I can check using Imagemagick command line magick -identify verbose filename.tiff

Which might include a section like this

Code:

Profiles:
   Profile-icc: 2747952 bytes
 Properties:
   date:create: 2025-04-13T08:02:11+00:00
   date:modify: 2025-04-13T08:02:11+00:00
   date:timestamp: 2025-04-13T10:30:15+00:00
   icc:copyright: Copyright X-Rite, Inc.. This profile is made available by IDEAlliance, with permission of X-Rite, Inc., and may be used, embedded, exchanged, and shared without restriction.  It may not be altered, or sold without written permission of IDEAlliance.
   icc:description: SWOP2006_Coated3v2.icc

Thank you very much   
I am trying to learn what GIMP does and what it doesn't. 
Appreciate the response.