I’d like to enjoy the benefits of my near-AdobeRGB monitor, but I know MyPaint doesn’t directly support ICC profiles. SO, I’m wondering if this workflow would be a compromise, or am I missing something?
Calibrate my monitor w/ DisplayCAL and munkicolor device.
Apply system-wide ICC profile, for instance: (PHL 276E6 #1 2017-06-03 22-00 D6500 2.2 S XYZLUT+MTX.icc)
Use MyPaint as I normally would but enjoy wider color gamut? (does this make sense?)
When saving files, use ORA but also save as a PNG for a final sharable image.
Load PNG into GIMP and assign the color profile from step 2.
Export the image as PNG with the color profile attached. Share on imgur, etc, but with the caveat that it won’t look right for most people that don’t use an ICC enabled browser. imgur seems to preserve the embedded icc profile.
Convert the image to sRGB with Perceptual or possibly Relative Colorimetric intent depending on the image. Share on imgur, etc. No ICC profile necessary.
So you end up with 3 files. Your ORA file from MyPaint w/ missing ICC profile, a PNG with a good ICC profile embedded in it, and a PNG that is converted to sRGB (no ICC profile needed since everything assumes sRGB anyway).
So if you were sharing these files on the Internet you’d really have to provide both versions, right? Or do any image sites somehow know if your client device supports ICC and automagically delivers an sRGB version or an ICC embedded version?
I went back to sRGB profile for my monitor. I really don’t need the headache of ICC and, to be honest, I don’t think I really need any more gamut range for my colors. I mean, I don’t really like super-saturated colors, so I don’t see why I would want to have a ridiculously red “red” color. For an art program trying to mimic traditional media, sRGB is probably just fine. I could be terribly wrong about that, though. . .
Actually, I thought I was switching back to sRGB and avoiding all this headache, but my monitor is “dumb”. Take a read of this article; it probably applies to a lot more monitors:
So basically I’m stuck with high-gamut near-Adobe RGB and I need to manually do the assignment and conversion to sRGB.
So you have to have a calibrated monitor (step 1-2 in your list).
We are working with non-color-managed software, MyPaint (step 3).
Why not only create an ORA, bring it into Krita or GIMP, adjust the colors there (compare on-screen), and save with an ICC? Then you can export a “ICC-PNG” if you like/need?
Haha you might be handy to have around! Alas, I tried to assign a color profile to a ORA file (in GIMP 2.8.18). Then I overwrite the ora file, load it up again and it has the sRGB profile back again. Besides, I’m not entirely confident that GIMP will render the ora exactly as mypaint (am I overly skeptical?). So, I think it’s ok to just export from mypaint as PNG when I’m ready to share, then assign the profile in GIMP and either export w/ embedded ICC or convert to sRGB 1st. I feel like sRGB is a better bet particularly since my artwork isn’t really pushing the gamut boundaries of sRGB. Not to mention hardly anyone is using color-managed browsers. I bought this silly monitor for no reason!
Oh the other thing I forgot to mention, in case it helps anyone, is to be sure to change MyPaint’s Load/Save preference to “No automatic conversions or tagging” if you’re using a color-managed display.
It just keeps getting better. I don’t know why I didn’t catch this earlier: Here’s the (sRGB) gamut mask I thought I was using based on the colors of some actual paints from art-paints.com:
But this was the actual (sRGB) gamut I was using because my monitor is stuck in high-gamut mode:
So, the lesson is (until mypaint gets color management ;-); if you get palette colors from somewhere, they are probably in sRGB. So you need to bring those colors into GIMP and do the conversion from sRGB to your monitor’s colorspace. THEN, you need to fake it out and assign the sRGB profile to them, and then create your palette and load that into MyPaint.
