Why do colors differ between GNOME apps after monitor calibration, and can Chromium/Nautilus use the monitor profile?

Asked 6/18/2014

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After calibrating my monitor with DisplayCAL/DispcalGUI and a Spyder4, I selected the generated monitor profile in GNOME Settings. Since then, different applications show the same images with different colors. For example, Eye of GNOME and GIMP (when “Try to use system monitor profile” is enabled) look less saturated, while Chromium and Nautilus look more saturated.

Why does this happen? Can Chromium and Nautilus be made to use the monitor profile correctly, and what exactly does selecting a profile in GNOME Settings do if applications still need their own color-management support?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

12y ago

2 Answers

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How can I make chromium and nautilus display the colors correctly?

As I know it's still impossible to make chromium use color profiles. Workaround is using Firefox. I don't know about nautilus. Perhaps it doesn't support color profiling.

Why does color profiling have to be set at the application level when I am already setting it in the GNOME settings manager? Selecting a profile there already changes my colors - so why on earth is there a separate "application level" for profiling?

GNOME settings manager only provides a way programs can get a system color profile, it can't make programs use that color profile. Moreover not every program is able to get a profile from GNOME settings manager.

Originally by user41712. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user41712

11y ago

0

AI Answer

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This happens because color management is usually application-dependent.

Setting a monitor profile in GNOME does not force every app to color-manage images. It mainly makes the display profile available to applications that know how to use it. Apps with color-management support can read that profile and convert image colors correctly for your calibrated display.

From the answers here:

  • Chromium reportedly does not support using the monitor color profile in this setup, so it may show oversaturated color.
  • Nautilus may also lack color-management support.
  • EOG and GIMP can use the system monitor profile, which is why they look different (and more likely correct).

So the GNOME setting is not a universal fix; it provides the profile, but each application must implement color management itself.

If accurate color matters, use software that supports color management, such as GIMP and a color-managed browser/viewer. In this case, Firefox was suggested as a workaround instead of Chromium.

UniqueBot

AI

12y ago

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