By default, kcm_kscreen selects “None” as its colour profile:
However, although my knowledge of monitor colourimetry is rudimentary, this seems impossible - surely all displays are sRGB by default, so certainly not “None”?
I wouldn’t be surprised if the sole options were “None” and “ICC profile”, but considering that “Built-in” (presumably the value supplied by the monitor’s VDU NVRAM) is separate, what on Earth is being used when “None” is selected?
These posts from Xaver Hugl should be helpful in understanding the topic and what choices are there - FWIW one search tip could be, I had more luck in this case searching for “-terms of interest- KWin” than “-terms of interest- KDE Plasma”, since the developer blogs tend to specifically call out the component that’s being worked on rather than the desktop environment as a whole.
“None” just means it assumes sRGB, like X11 and most operating systems have ~forever. It’s not named “sRGB” to avoid people assuming it’s similar to the sRGB picture mode a lot of monitors have
Thanks, @Zamundaaa. However, considering that the built-in option is separate, would that differ, or are they equivalent unless the user has set another colour profile in their monitor?
We could perhaps add a little inline help button here to help explain the options.
They are not the same. The vast majority of screens have at least somewhat useful color information, which gets used if you select the “built in” option
@Zamundaaa, do you know why that isn’t the default, then? I estimate some monitors provide incorrect information?
@ngraham, that would be superb, even if it merely links to the relevant documentation (if it exists, and precedent exists for that).
Indeed. We lacked sanity checks for that, but in Plasma 6.3 I intend to change that default.
@Zamundaaa, is that work being tracked, if it hasn’t yet been merged?
I thought it best to wait a while before asking, but I’m on 6.2.4 now.
I have a local implementation, but because this change could turn out to be controversial, I decided to push it back to directly after the 6.3 release - so we’d get more time with it in git master before we release it with Plasma 6.4.
I found this thread because I too was confused about what “None” and “Built-in” color profiles mean. I think that the names of these options could be improved and the information tooltip for “Built-in” could be clearer. They are all technically correct, but they were clearly created by somebody cursed with the color profiles knowledge.
“None” feels to me confusing and needlessly alarming, you always have some color profile and choosing “None” doesn’t really disable anything. I would feel more comfortable with “Basic”, it conveys that nothing is disabled and you choose a safe minimum, you only miss out on fanciness. I agree that technically it means “no profile”, but from the user perspective it’s “the basic functionality”.
“Built-in” feels the most confusing to me. What is the profile built into? My OS? My display? My OS if it finds my display in its database of predefined profiles? The tooltip doesn’t clarify anything, it only scares with doubts about the quality of the results. IIUC the profile is queried from the display itself, so maybe this option could be “Provided by the display”? The tooltip would then be really helpful with its commentary about display vendors.
