Color management in PW8 - need help...

[LesX]

OK...i am opening CR2 files (Canon) using PW8 (latest version), on a Win11 system.
The monitor is calibrated, and the custom color profile is set as a default profile in Display Settings in Windows.
The Color Management Settings in PW8 are shown in the attached image 'PW8_CM_Settings.jpg'.
The CR2 image opens just fine, and its color profile is converted from 'None" to the monitor profile...and here is the problem:

The same CR2 image is also opened in Digital Photo Professional v4, and also in GIMPv3. Both DPP4 and GIMP have their color management set 'On', with appropriate settings applied.
The images in DPP4 and GIMP are identical. The exported TIFFS contain color profile. The TIFFs look identical - viewed either in DPP$, or GIMP, or in Photos (Windows app) - as they should.

The CR2 image opened in PW8, however, is distinctly darker. It is converted to the same image profile, but the image opened in PW8 and the TIFF exported with the color profile embedded are much darker than the images from DPP or GIMP.

To my understanding - if the same RAW data is converted to the same color profile - it should look identical, irrespective of the editor used.
The reality is as shown in the attached image 'Comparison_3_editors.jpg'

So - what might be the problem? It is usually located between the chair and the keyboard...but I can't figure out what might be wrong.
I can deal with Photoshop, GIMP, DPP, Lightroom and get exactly the same results from each - but not with PW8...

Any insight would be greatly appreciated...

[jsachs]

The RAW file code in PWP does not attempt to set the image brightness -- the brightness levels are unchanged from the original raw data in the file. Generally, images will come in dark, but this leaves extra headroom to prevent highlight clipping. The RAW files from different cameras appear to come it at different brightness levels so there is no one brightness setting that works for all files. The assumption is that you will use the Curve in Raw Develop to adjust the brightness to your preference, or that you will use some other raw converter before opening the file in PWP. I generally recommend this if possible as other raw converters now include very good camera-specific profiles, distortion, vignetting correction, CA correction, noise reduction and highlight recovery options. Without knowing how they work internally, it is possible that DPP and GIMP are doing some kind of autorange on the raw image to set the overall brightness and contrast or that they are using some EXIF metadata regarding the image that I am unaware of.

Once the raw file is converted to a working color space, color management should take over and give a consistent look subject to the limitations of the display or printer hardware.

[LesX]

Thank you :)
I spent a bit of time investigating how GIMP and DPP4 import RAW images. What you said is 100% correct: RawTherapee, on opening RAW file, adjusts the curves automatically (probably can be set to linear). With linear curves - GIMP and PW8 produce almost the same result.
Same with DPP4 - it appears to adjust tones of the image.
I much prefer PW8 - I absolutely hate when software does something w/o asking. Maybe I am a control freak :)

I quite like GIMP 3 because of the improved interface, but PW8 is still incredibly good, in many aspects better than GIMP or DPP4.

In any case - thank a lot for the response, I appreciate it very much.