Mark Lowry skrev:

Attached is a link to a screen capture showing the same image opened in Windows Picture and Fax viewer and in GIMP 2.4. As you can see, the GIMP version (no editing performed) has a haze compared to the WP&F viewer version.

http://vabirdy.tripod.com/images/puppypics/gimp_jpeg_haze.jpg

This is very annoying, but I'm not sure which viewer is at fault. Should I submit a bug report for this?

Thanks ..... Mark

Hello

This is probably a color management issue. I don't think the image viewer in Windows is color managed, so if you also disable display color management in GIMP (File -> Preferences -> Color Management -> set Monitor Profile to None and uncheck Try to use the system monitor profile), does this still happen?

Martin

Hi,

On Sun, 2008-01-06 at 05:39 -0800, Mark Lowry wrote:

1. Shouldn't Try to use.... be unchecked by default at installation? This would prevent some confusion, at least it would have for me.

It is off by default since version 2.4.2. Too many Windows users seem to have installed monitor profiles without knowing about it. A monitor profile is only useful if it is indeed created for the particular monitor and viewing conditions.

2. If Try to use... is left checked, and printing is done through GIMP, should I expect the printed result to be different from the version printed through Windows Picture and Fax Viewer?

What does the monitor profile have to do with printing? Nothing.

Sven

Mark Lowry yahoo.com> writes:

Two questions:

1. Shouldn't Try to use.... be unchecked by default at installation? This would prevent some confusion, at least it would have for me.

GIMP aims to be a respectable high-end graphic editor and as such should support color management by default. The problem you encountered is the same problem many first-time users of Photoshop encounter. Actually, Photoshop users sometime have it much worse: some report the entire image to be yellow or pink, due to some color management issue or another.

Date: Sun, 6 Jan 2008 11:52:49 -0800 (PST) From: Mark Lowry

The reason I asked is that my goal when post-processing is to end up with a print that looks like my screen. When I print from Windows Picture & Fax Viewer, it looks like what I see on the screen. I assumed that printing from GIMP would give you a print that looked like the image that is open in GIMP, but I guess that's just silly. Who would want that?

It's not silly, but the monitor profile doesn't have anything to do with printing. The monitor profile is just the profile for the monitor; it affects how the image is displayed.

As for whether you'll get exactly the same output if you print through GIMP vs. if you print through the viewer, that depends upon exactly what GIMP (and the print plugin you're using -- if you're using Windows, I suspect you're using the GIMP 2.4 print plugin, not the Gutenprint plugin with which I'm familiar) does in the way of color management on printing, and exactly what the viewer does. I'm not familiar with Windows printing, so I don't know exactly where color management happens in the printing chain. But that's independent of what either GIMP or the viewer does with the *monitor* profile.

--- Sven Neumann wrote: >
> > 2. If Try to use... is left checked, and printing is > > done through GIMP, should I expect the printed result > > to be different from the version printed through > > Windows Picture and Fax Viewer? >
> What does the monitor profile have to do with printing? Nothing.

Hi,

On Sun, 2008-01-06 at 15:15 +0000, Michael Grosberg wrote:

GIMP aims to be a respectable high-end graphic editor and as such should support color management by default. The problem you encountered is the same problem many first-time users of Photoshop encounter. Actually, Photoshop users sometime have it much worse: some report the entire image to be yellow or pink, due to some color management issue or another.

We have had the same reports from Windows users of GIMP 2.4. Some monitors (or graphics cards?) seem to come with Windows software that installs a system-wide monitor profile. This can't possibly work as a monitor needs to be individually calibrated. And some of these monitor profiles even seem to be so bad that they cause terrible color casts.

Sven

On Sunday 06 January 2008 11:52:49 Mark Lowry wrote:

The reason I asked is that my goal when post-processing is to end up with a print that looks like my screen.

This is one goal that users should be able to achieve. But I would take it even farther by saying I want what is on my screen to match what I saw when I snapped the shutter (before I start changing the image in an editor). And for that to also match what comes out of my printer.

When I print from Windows Picture & Fax Viewer, it looks like what I see on the screen.

You were lucky since this usually does not happen for most users.

I
assumed that printing from GIMP would give you a print that looked like the image that is open in GIMP, but I guess that's just silly. Who would want that?

Most everyone wants this. The real question/issue is what is the proper/reliable way to achieve this. If you do not have your color management properly setup for your whole imaging workflow you will have difficulties getting this kind of result. GIMP now has some color management awareness and can, if properly setup, color manage images on the computer display. This also means that if it is not properly setup that you could end up with very strange results as you found out. As far as I know GIMP is still missing the functionality to directly support a color managed printing work flow. But at least on Linux and some other platforms this can be handled using other tools such as PhotoPrint.

Setting up proper color management is not a trivial task and it also requires some specialized hardware and software. Not too long ago this hardware and software was considered to be very specialized and was also expensive. In the last few years the cost of the hardware has declined significantly and there are two cross platform open source software solutions (IE. the software can be free). Most users can now afford to create custom profiles for at least their input (camera, scanner..) and display devices. Many printer and paper vendors offer free printer/paper specific profiles for Windows and OS/X users that approach the quality of custom printer profiles. Now days it is possible to get everything you need to do proper color management on a Windows or OS/X system for under $100 (a color meter and a profiling target such as an IT8.7 target) assuming you can get good printer profiles from either your printer or paper vendor. Just two years ago this would have cost at least $350 perhaps more and it was difficult to get free printer/paper specific profiles. For Linux users and Windows and OS/X users who can't get free printer profiles it is possible to get custom printer profiles from vendors that do this sort of thing for as little as $25. I expect that over time we will see farther reductions in these costs but this is clearly to the point where almost anyone can afford to do this the correct way. Most of the existing barriers to users doing this are in the areas of awareness and education.

Hal

..... Mark

--- Sven Neumann wrote:

2. If Try to use... is left checked, and printing

is

done through GIMP, should I expect the printed

result

to be different from the version printed through Windows Picture and Fax Viewer?

What does the monitor profile have to do with printing? Nothing.

Sven

____________________________