Arch Linux

pezcurrel

Member

Registered: 2012-06-21

Posts: 28

[Solved] Double color correction

Hello

My laptop has a monitor with pretty terrible color reproduction, in particular it has a greenish tint. I have configured Xorg to load the monitor's color correction profile from the right ICC file at startup using xiccd, and this significantly improves the colors in all applications. However, many applications offer an additional option within them to apply a monitor color profile to the images they display. This can be the “system” profile—in my case, the one loaded by xiccd when Xorg starts—or another one from a different ICC/ICM file. If i enable it with the “system” color profile, the colors of the images within the applications very visibly change further, but shouldn’t it be enough to apply the color profile to Xorg, which already changes the colors in all applications?

I'm worried that by applying the same color profile first to Xorg as a whole (and thus to all applications running under it), and then in individual applications, i’m actually messing up the colors. If this is the case, what would be better? Applying the color profile to Xorg or in the applications?

Last edited by pezcurrel (2026-05-28 14:38:49)

apaz

Member

Registered: 2018-07-23

Posts: 130

Re: [Solved] Double color correction

You're right, this is an aspect of color management that is rarely discussed. You have to decide whether to use system-wide color management or application-specific color management. In the first case, we have to disable color management in applications that support it. This results in a type of color management called “Display-Referred.” If, on the other hand, we disable CM at the system level and enable it in the programs we’re interested in, we have more potential but also more complications. This leads to a CM called “Scene-Referred.” These are general concepts that also apply to Wayland. I mainly use a video editing program that doesn’t have CM, so I enable it at the system level, but then I have to disable it in GIMP and other programs...
As a further complication, we have the management of HDR color spaces, which, for now, do not integrate well into a general CM but operate independently in conjunction with the monitors. For example, HDR monitors cannot currently be calibrated.

pezcurrel

Member

Registered: 2012-06-21

Posts: 28

Re: [Solved] Double color correction

Thank you very much