Being in the process of switching over to Linux from Windows, I’ve found most things work incredibly well and the things that don’t mostly have native alternatives or runs well through something like Proton, Lutris or Bottles. But the one thing that is currently making me keep Windows around and regularly using it is color management and monitor profiling software, and I would really appreciate any suggestions.

This is, in my case, about KDE Plasma on CachyOS/Arch with an Nvidia GPU and I’ve spent some time trying to figure it out since the Wayland color management/HDR protocol was finalized some months ago, but have not had much luck. Plasma seems to have decent support for using ICC profiles in newer versions, but creating them in the first place is a challenge. I’ve tried a few things, but none of them give good results. First off I’ve tried running DisplayCAL as you normally would, and while it connects to my calibrator (X-Rite i1 Display Pro Plus) and gets through most of the process it fails at the very end before it would normally ask you to save and install the profile. It still makes an .icc-file you can find somewhere in the application data folders (I don’t remember the path at the moment), but using them gives obviously incorrect colors like the main color of the ArchWiki background being much redder than it should be. I also tried following the guide Xaver/Zamundaaa wrote a little over a year ago about exactly this, but that fails to start profiling at all. Lastly I’ve tried profiling on Windows and copying the ICC files over and using them as-is which also gives incorrect colors, as you would expect. I would’ve loved to use the vendor’s first party profiling software (calibrite Profiler), but they only support Windows and MacOS.

As I understand it, ArgyllCMS (with DisplayCAL as its GUI), was typically the recommended solution for this, but they do not support Wayland and according to ArgyllCMS (see the explanation under “Display color management and Wayland” on their website) “there is little immediate prospect of ArgyllCMS being able to natively support display calibration and profiling for Wayland” due to various issues working with the Wayland devs and lacking protocols.

Is Linux/Wayland simply not ready for this use case yet? Are there alternatives to ArgyllCMS/DisplayCAL that does support profiling on Wayland? Is it an Nvidia-related issue as it often seems to be?

  • sga@piefed.socialEnglish
    3·
    6 days ago

    I am sorry, but you might be correct here that linux icc profile support is not great. my generic advice would be to check out arch wiki (but seeing from your answer, you have already tries some of the things that wiki lists, you have probably already read it).

    if i am not wrong, many original display manufacturers do provide icc profiles for panels, and you could find them in their spec somewhere (i think i have done this once for a older display)

    • Tekdeb@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
      2·
      6 days ago

      I didn’t think of the “premade” profiles actually, thanks for the suggestion. Using the manufacturers own profiles typically aren’t ideal as each display can be a little different even if they are the exact same model and they change a bit over time, but maybe that’s the best I can get for now.

      I expect them to have been created on Windows like I did with my own and as such will have the same problem because Linux and Windows color management are fundamentally quite different, but it is certainly worth a try. I will test that a bit later. It could never match custom profiles, but it could possibly be good enough.

      • sga@piefed.socialEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        maybe they can atleast serve as fine staring point. i have never edited them before, and not even sure what format are they in (i am guessing they should be something editable by hand, but just guessing)

        • Tekdeb@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
          3·
          5 days ago

          So… Mostly good results actually. I tested the default profiles from the manufacturer and they seem ok. They are not as good as my custom ones on Windows for a couple of different reasons, but they are good enough to make me no longer see it as a major issue. Thanks again for the suggestion!

          I also doublechecked the ArchWiki and according to that, ICC profiles are supposed to be cross-platform compatible and that profiling on Windows or MacOS and transferring the files over is a solution. But I’ve also read the opposite somewhere and my own profiles from Windows do not look great on Linux for whatever reason. So it seems that my own profiles from Windows are somehow not compatible, but ICC profiles fundamentally can be and that the manufacturer’s profiles are in this case.

          Personally I wouldn’t mind having to profile/calibrate on Windows every now and then because I expect to keep it around on a separate drive for a long time yet for those use cases Linux don’t meet my requirements, but sadly I did not get good results that way. Maybe I’ll try different profiling software later and see if it’s a problem with the Calibrite software.

          For anyone having the same issues as me and finds this thread later: I would recommend dual-booting and profiling on Windows and testing those first. If they work well for you, great, else you can compromise a little and use the manufacturer’s profiles if they are available and decently made. Hopefully it’s not too long until we get a good native solution, but for now there doesn’t seem to be any.

          • sga@piefed.socialEnglish
            2·
            4 days ago

            thanks for checking it out.

            I have also heard that icc profiles should be independent.

            I would request you to try something. use some profile generated in windows, in both windows and linux. now take some sample file (ideally non hdr) and open it in a some program available in both windows and linux, so for example, mpv. even though mpv has some differences in it’s default config on these 2 systems, but try to use software encoding to prevent those differences. and ensure the output is fullscreened (ideally by a mpv cli option). now ideally same colors should be produced. if they are, then you have your problem solved, if not, well then we know same profile does not work.

            Still thanks for trying. linux is currently weak in these cases, because much of these has been driven by artists who do color accurate work, who have traditionally only worked on ms and now apple stuff. so there has been very little work in fixing this stuff. also since many of these color production stuff is licensed, it requires manufacturer to test in linux while certification, which no one does. commercial interest is just not there.