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There are 3 areas in HDR Light Studio where Color Management is used:
1. Display
All content inside HDR Light Studio is handled in linear format - i.e. no color transform = ground truth values. For example, the Render View, Light Preview and Canvas are all displaying linear image data. So, in order for them to look correct on your display, a display LUT/Color Profile needs applying to this data. The most popular LUT to use for your display is sRGB. We suggest using the Preferences to set your default OCIO Default View to sRGB.
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2. Loaded Images
Anywhere where an image can be loaded into HDR Light Studio, a Color Profile can be set for the image. This Color Profile tells HDR Light Studio the color profile that is embedded in the values of the image, so it can convert the image back into linear color space. Therefore when selecting sRGB for example, the image has a 'reverse' transform of the sRGB profile applied. It does not apply another sRGB transform, this would result in the image having a double sRGB profile applied.
Below a photograph has been loaded into HDR Light Studio, it is a JPEG file and will be in the sRGB color space. By default a Color Profile of Linear is applied to loaded images. The image on the left looks washed out, it needs to be set to sRGB in order to remove it's sRGB color space, and return the image to linear space. Then when the image is displayed in the Light Preview, which has an sRGB color space, the image appears correctly.
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3. Production Render
When producing production renders of your HDR content. There is an option to set a Color Profile for the output. It is very rare you would want to use this as it would destroy the integrity and lighting look you had created in HDR LIght Studio. But it does allow a Color Profile to be used perhaps to change the lighting look to a specific feel.
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