[Gimp-developer] An apology (was Re: GIMP needs a new color management person)

[Elle Stone <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>]

On 05/02/2015 07:21 PM, Elle Stone wrote:

> Right now for OpenEXR images, the image is opened, it's assumed to be a
> linear gamma sRGB image (really bad assumption), the sRGB TRC is
> applied, and the GIMP built-in sRGB profile is assigned
> (https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=316646). This is laughably
> wrong. Instead of removing the coding step that applies the sRGB TRC and
> giving the user a chance to *assign* the right ICC profile (I supplied a
> patch to do just that), the plan as discussed on IRC and in the bug
> report seems to be to extend the "auto sRGB TRC" assumption right into
> the LCMS plugin itself, which is a mind-boggling wrong thing to do.

I owe Mitch and the other devs an apology. Over the last few months 
they've made a lot of positive changes in GIMP color management. For 
example:

* Dragging and dropping between RGB layer stacks is now color-managed.
* DCF information is handled properly.
* The problem with OpenEXR was solved by code that creates and assigns a 
linear gamma version of the sRGB profile to OpenEXR files, which doesn't 
modify the image file's RGB values, and does allow the user a chance to 
assign a different profile as needed. Also the OpenEXR code now reads 
chromaticity information.
* A glance through GIMP bug reports shows that other good changes are 
underway.
* The LCMS plugin itself is gone, replaced by code that indeed switches 
between linearized RGB and perceptual RGB, and everything still seems to 
work just fine.

In case I've given anyone the impression that I think GIMP isn't a good 
image editor, that impression is incorrect. GIMP is an excellent image 
editor, and I use GIMP 2.9 (with some small patches applied) as my main 
image editor of choice.

Best regards,
Elle