When you preview a scene in Viewport 2.0 or the Render View with color management enabled, a view transform is applied by default. This transform converts colors from the rendering space so that they are suitable for display. The view transform does not affect the final render by default, and is intended mainly for previewing.
The transforms that are available to use as a view transform depend on whether you have created user transforms, and whether you are using an OCIO configuration file for color management. For a brief description of all the built-in options, see List of view/output transforms.
You can set the default view transform using the View Transform option in the Color Management preferences. See Choose the default View Transform.
You can use the controls on the Viewport 2.0 and Render View toolbars to temporarily deactivate the view transform, or use a different one for diagnostic or other purposes. The adjustments that you make on the toolbars are temporary, and are not saved in the scene. In particular, the Gamma setting is an extra value applied on top of the view transform, and should be left at 1.00 for normal viewing — you do not need to set it to a value like 2.2 to emulate sRGB.
- Turn off the view transform off or select Raw to display the untransformed rendering space colors.
- Decrease Exposure to examine details in the highlights.
- Increase Gamma to examine details in the shadows.
- Apply the Log transform to display a wide range of values at once.
See also List of view/output transforms.