[Digikam-users] Color Managed View - How?

[Arnd Baecker]

Hi Hal,

thanks a lot for this very helpful overview!

So far I have not started using color management, because
I don't have a device for profiling my screen.
Unfortunately, it seems that there are not many
which work under linux. For example the spyder hack
http://www.yan-ke.com/spyder/
to support ColorVisions Spyder colorimeter
did not make any progress in the last months.
(And the DTP94 Optix listed at
http://www.argyllcms.com/doc/ArgyllDoc.html
is difficult to get and not that cheap)

But maybe this is not really necessary and
setting the monitor to sRGB (as I can do on my Eizo)
and adjust gamma with lprof
(http://sourceforge.net/project/screenshots.php?group_id=146038&ssid=21740)
is already better than nothing?

Still I think that to ease the use of color management
in the context of digikam there should be a brief list of steps
(like a recipe ;-) which one should follow to get
everything setup properly.
The handbook already provides a description of the concepts,
http://docs.kde.org/development/en/extragear-graphics/digikam/using-iccprofile.html
but I am looking more for something like
1) set screen to sRGB
2) adjust gamma and brightness of the screen properly
3) enable color management and use the right ICC profile for you camera
4) do all manipulation in a "large" color space
   (e.g. ProPhoto RGB ?,
   http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/prophoto-rgb.shtml)
4) (?) use the right output profile for your printer or one provided by
   the lab to print your images (of course you need a good lab for this)

Note the previous points are in complete ignorance of how
it should be done correctly!

While all the concepts behind color-management and color spaces
are not trivial, somehow I have the feeling that
it still should be simple to use in the end
(presumably it is already, but I haven't grasped it yet ... ;-)

Best, Arnd