* Using littlecms for professional colourmanagement.


Profiles are applied to image data on import, paste, copy, display and
printing to calibrate for particular ways in which image data can 
be presented or created. Profiles are associated with a certain
color space and with a device class.

* The following profiles are available in Chalk:

Image profile           The image profile is the default profile
                        for the default color space for the layers 
                        in Chalk

Layer profile           Chalk images can have layers of different
                        color spaces, so each layer can have a
                        different profile, too.
                        
Display profile         When converting the visible part of 
                        an image for displaying on the users monitor,
                        a monitor calibration profile can be applied
                        to adjust for display idiosyncrasies.

Import profile          On importing an image from disk that does
                        not have a profile embedded (XXX: embedded
                        profiles aren't recoginized yet), a screenshot
                        or a scan, the import profile is attached
                        to the image.
                        
Output profile          On printing, a profile can be applied to the
                        image to compensate for the printer
                        idiosyncrasies. XXX: Printing doesn't work
                        yet at all, and printing is big task that
                        should be part of KDE. We should simply
                        convert an image to a tiff file with embedded
                        profile, and send that to a system printer.
                        
                        
* At the following points we need to handle profiles:


File import             Chalk uses ImageMagick to import files. 
                        ImageMagick knows about embedded profiles and
                        makes them available in memory. We need to 
                        hack our IM builder to convert the in-memory
                        profile blob to a profile handle.
        

File export             Chalk uses ImageMagick to export files.
                        Here we need to do the reverse trick; take
                        a profile handle and get IM to save it with 
                        the file.

Paste from clipboard    Two cases: Chalk has placed a clip on the
                        clipboard, or another application has placed
                        a clip on the clipboard. Clips are wrapped
                        in the KisClip class that can be created with
                        a profile. That can be the profile of the
                        image Chalk copied the clip from, or the
                        copy profile set in the Settings, or none.

                        An external clip is always RGB8 (for now, no
                        doubt Qt will extend its clipboard once RGB16
                        images or RGB half images become widespread),
                        so in those cases we always need an RGB
                        profile.

                        Paste from external applications is handled by
                        the constructor from KisPaintDevice,
                        internally it might entail a mode conversion.
 
Copy to clipboard       If another application consumes a clip Chalk
                        has put on the clipboard it can receive the
                        data as-is, or with a profile applied.

                        Paste is handled by KisPaintDevice::convertToQImage.

Display on monitor      For calibrated displays. This is handled 
                        by KisPaintDevice::convertToQImage()

Image mode conversion   A user can either choose to convert an
                        existing layer or image to another color
                        model/profile/bit depth or the conversion can
                        happen automatically, for instance when
                        painting when the color of a pixel is
                        converted from KoColor to the color in the
                        color model.

                        This is handled by
                        KisStrategyColorSpace:convertTo().

File loading            Chalk's own file format now has a field for
                        the product name of a profile. We need also to
                        be able to embed the entire profile into a
                        Chalk file. That should be easy, since a Chalk
                        file is just a zipfile.

File saving             When loading a Chalk file format image we
                        should also be able to load embedded profiles.


* Chalk should have a few extra features that are easy to implement
  once I a) know what they mean, technically and b) the foregoing is
  completed. These are:

Softproofing            Showing the image on the monitor with profiles
                        for printing applied, too. 

Out-of-gamut warnign    Colours that cannot be printed are shown in
                        some hideous colour.

Blackpoint compenstion  No idea about this...

8-bit image dither      No idea.

...                     lcms offers more stuff that I don't know
                        anything about but which might be interesting.


* External factors play a role. We need a free display calibration
  tool for X11, a printing system that takes this stuff into account
  and all the rest. That's not part of Chalk, but it needs to be done
  some time. XXX: Ask the KGamma developers about this?