Re: [Gimp-developer] New Image/Color Management option

[Elle Stone <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>]

On 05/12/2016 03:56 PM, Michael Natterer wrote:
> On Thu, 2016-05-12 at 08:46 -0400, Elle Stone wrote:
> > >There is a new "Image/Color Management" option to "Enable Color
> > >Management". The option is checked by default. For sRGB images,
> > >checking
> > >or unchecking the option doesn't seem to make any difference.
> Exactly, even without a profile, pixels have some meaning. And
> in GIMP, the "default" meaning is sRGB.

Frankly I don't see the utility of this new option. Users who don't want 
to deal with the complexities of ICC profile color management already 
have the option to only edit sRGB images.

But if there really is a defensible use case, here are two concrete 
suggestions:

1. Move this new option down to the group of options below and separated 
from the two normal Color Management options.

2. Relabel the option as "Assume this image is an sRGB image".

Here is why I'm making these two suggestions:

GIMP menu items and help hover tips shouldn't misinform GIMP users, but 
instead should tell GIMP users the truth and also help to educate them.

In an ICC profile color-managed editing application, pixels are 
literally meaningless without knowing which ICC profile should be used 
to give the channel values meaning. You can't change the very basis of 
ICC profile color management by arbitrarily deciding that for GIMP "no 
profile" actually means "sRGB". Because it doesn't. And pretending that 
it does will mislead GIMP users.

The global switch in "Preferences/Color Management" to set the Image 
display mode to "No color management" actually does disable color 
management. This means that the image RGB channel values are sent 
directly to the screen. This is the functional equivalent of assigning 
the user's chosen monitor profile to all open images.

Unchecking the pre-checked box in the "Images/Color Management" menu 
that says "Enable Color Management" sounds like it should do the exact 
same thing as going into Preferences and setting the Image display mode 
to "No color management". But what unchecking "Images/Color Management" 
actually does is *assume* the image is an sRGB image, even if the image 
already has an ICC profile that's not the sRGB profile. This assumption 
only produces the same result as choosing "No color management" in 
Preferences if the user has also chosen sRGB as their monitor profile in 
"Preferences/Color Management".

The truthful and less confusing verbiage for this prechecked 
"Images/Color Management/Enable Color Management" option would be 
"Images/Color Management/Assume this image is an sRGB image".

Also, the position of the new option gives it "mouse scrolling" and 
"visual" importance. The user has to read and then scroll past this new 
option to get to the more normal Color Management options to assign or 
convert to a new ICC profile.

This prominent placement of the new option in the "Image/Color 
Management" menu makes it seem like a normal thing to do while editing 
an image is to disable Color Management, which of course isn't at all 
what this option really does.

So again, if this new option really does have some utility (and again I 
can't see that it does), then it would be better to do the following:

1. Move this new option down to the group of options below and separated 
from the two normal Color Management options.

2. Relabel the option as "Assume this image is an sRGB image".

Best,
Elle
--
http://ninedegreesbelow.com
Color management and free/libre photography