KGamma2 Makes For Easy Gamma Adjustments On KDE Plasma With Wayland
KDE developer David Edmundson has released KGamma2, a GUI tool that exposes KWin's existing ICC profile-based gamma adjustment support under Wayland, filling the gap left by the original KGamma tool that only worked on X11.
Intelligence analysis by Llama
KGamma2 wraps KWin's already-capable ICC profile Video Card Gamma Table (VCGT) into an easy GUI, so KDE Plasma users on Wayland can finally tweak gamma without falling back to X11 — with extras like per-monitor values and night color blending.
Imagine your computer screen has a brightness dial that used to work on the old TV-style system but stopped working on the new one. A KDE builder made a new, friendlier dial called KGamma2 that talks the new system's language, so people can keep tuning their screens just like before — and now each monitor can have its own setting.
Analysis
A Familiar Tool Reimagined For Wayland
KDE's original KGamma utility has been a staple for users who want to nudge monitor brightness curves or compensate for poor factory calibration, but it was built around the X11 RandR extension and stopped functioning once users moved into a Wayland session. With KDE Plasma's roadmap increasingly pointed at Wayland-only configurations, that gap became more than an inconvenience — it was a regression for anyone who calibrated displays by hand. David Edmundson's KGamma2 is explicitly designed to close that loop without requiring a new session type.
The clever bit, as Edmundson frames it, is that the underlying capability was already there. KWin's Wayland color management code, paired with the ICC profile's Video Card Gamma Table (VCGT) channel, can already push gamma adjustments to the display. The original KGamma simply didn't have a Wayland-aware front-end to drive that machinery. KGamma2 is essentially a modern, Wayland-native shell sitting on top of an existing pipeline.
More Than Just A Port
Rather than being a 1:1 reimplementation, KGamma2 takes advantage of what Wayland's stricter per-output model enables. The new tool supports multiple monitors with independent gamma values, something that was awkward or impossible under the X11-era KGamma. It also composes cleanly with KDE's night color feature, letting users blend a warm night-light tint with their own gamma tweaks instead of forcing a choice between the two.
There's also a quality-of-life win at launch: KGamma2 is described as a smoother experience from the moment the application opens, suggesting Edmundson took the opportunity to clean up the rough edges that the older utility had accumulated. The end result is a tool that feels less like a stopgap and more like a proper successor.
A Pattern Of Polishing The Edges
KGamma2 is part of a broader run of KDE Plasma 6.8-era refinements Phoronix has been tracking, including a new kscreenctl command-line tool, a redesigned system monitor, and ongoing performance work for multi-GPU and eGPU setups. Read together, these point to a release whose theme is less about headline features and more about making the daily Wayland desktop experience match — and in some cases exceed — what X11 users had grown used to. Gamma control may sound small, but for users who calibrated their displays a decade ago and have been quietly missing that knob, it's the kind of fix that makes a migration feel finished.
Key points
- KGamma2 is a new KDE tool by developer David Edmundson that brings back easy gamma adjustments for Plasma users on Wayland.
- It works by exposing KWin's existing ICC profile Video Card Gamma Table (VCGT) support through a friendly GUI, requiring no new KWin or KScreen code paths.
- The new tool supports per-monitor gamma values and integrates with KDE's night color feature, neither of which the original KGamma handled cleanly on X11.
- It is available now via a KDE.org repository and is documented on Edmundson's blog.
- The release fits a broader Plasma 6.8 pattern of polishing the Wayland desktop experience ahead of an X11-free future.
If KGamma2 sees adoption, it removes one of the most commonly cited reasons KDE users have stuck with X11 sessions, smoothing the path to a fully Wayland-only Plasma future. Because it reuses KWin's existing VCGT path, there's little risk of duplicating or fragmenting color management code, and the per-monitor controls could become a foundation for richer calibration workflows in future KDE releases.
The tool is described as a personal project from a single developer, so long-term maintenance depends on continued interest and review bandwidth from the KDE community. Users on multi-GPU setups or with unusual display pipelines may still hit edge cases, and the fact that KGamma2 leans on existing KWin color management means any rough edges in that underlying layer will surface here too.