🚀 go-pugleaf

-->Yet the only difference in my examples is the use of a CRT to view the image.

No. The only difference in your examples is the use of a slide scanner to scan the film instead of an eyeball.

The painted slide is a total red herring�you're using your eyes, which are nonlinear, to decide how much paint to apply. If you scanned it with a slide scanner, you'd still need to apply a gamma correction to make the scanner's linear perception match the eye's logarithmic perception.

You can whack out the curves in your display system to give the CRT+video card a linear gamma. You can then display linear gamma images on it. Agfa actually tried to persuade people that this was a good idea in the ColorTune 1.0 time frame. Everyone who tried it quickly disabused them of that notion. But if you want to work that way, there is absolutely nothing preventing you from doing so today except good sense.

We apply inverse gamma to interpret the raw linear photon count the same way our eyes do, and wittering on about CRTs will do nothing to change that. Until you grasp this fundamental fact, I fear you are going to make heavy weather of any digital imaging efforts.

"You" may apply inverse gamma for no other reason than to linearize the CRT. Please don't presume to speak for those of us who apply inverse gamma to make the best use of the available bits produced by the linear capture device.