Krita color theme customization

(Tested on Krita versions between 5.1 - 6.0)

Yesterday (2022-12-03) I wanted a Krita theme that was slightly brighter and slightly higher contrast, but there was no theme that felt right so I decided to make my own.

Default

My custom theme

This turned out to be a big pain for 4 reasons:

There's no documentation for the theme files at all that I can find
Most of the values in the theme files don't seem to do anything
Many of the settings are inconsistent and confusing and apply in many different kinds of situations
You need to restart Krita to see your changes

After adding some very bright colors to everything bit by bit and restarting over and over to see what changes, here's what I found out:

[ColorEffects:Disabled]			// This effect modifies the color of some things like disabled/unavailable inputs/text. It also dyes most of the window when you first start the program.
Color=0,0,0						// Color of the effect.
ColorAmount=0					// The intensity of the above color.
ColorEffect=0					// Maybe blending mode of the above color? I only got 2 and 3 to do anything, 3 seems to be more intense and affect white colors more.
ContrastAmount=0.5				// You can use this to "gray out" things.
ContrastEffect=1				// Contrast blending mode?
IntensityAmount=0				// Modifies the color somehow, seems to make it brighter.
IntensityEffect=0				// Intensity blending mode?

[ColorEffects:Inactive]			// This effect modifies most of the window and dockers when they are inactive (like when another window pops up in front of it, or if you use floating dockers).
Enable=true						// Enables this effect, not sure why ColorEffects:Disabled doesn't need this.
ChangeSelectionColor=false		// If "true", then some things like the current layer will sometimes get this effect, I'm not sure what the logic is.
Color=0,0,0						// See ColorEffects:Disabled above.
ColorAmount=0.1					// See ColorEffects:Disabled above.
ColorEffect=2					// See ColorEffects:Disabled above.
ContrastAmount=0				// See ColorEffects:Disabled above.
ContrastEffect=0				// See ColorEffects:Disabled above.
IntensityAmount=0				// See ColorEffects:Disabled above.
IntensityEffect=0				// See ColorEffects:Disabled above.

[Colors:Button]
BackgroundNormal=90,90,90		// Backgrounds of some buttons and sliders, and also some settings boxes with tabs (like in the 'new document' window).
BackgroundAlternate=255,0,255	// --
DecorationFocus=255,0,255		// --
DecorationHover=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundNormal=255,255,255	// Text color on some buttons.
ForegroundActive=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundInactive=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundLink=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundNegative=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundNeutral=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundPositive=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundVisited=255,0,255		// --

[Colors:Selection]
BackgroundNormal=140,125,60		// The main highlight color on inputs and selected things.
BackgroundAlternate=255,0,255	// --
DecorationFocus=255,0,255		// --
DecorationHover=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundNormal=255,255,255	// Text color on the main highlighted inputs.
ForegroundActive=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundInactive=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundLink=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundNegative=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundNeutral=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundPositive=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundVisited=255,0,255		// --

[Colors:Tooltip]
BackgroundNormal=0,0,0			// Background of tooltip when you hover over something (Linux only?).
BackgroundAlternate=255,0,255	// --
DecorationFocus=255,0,255		// --
DecorationHover=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundNormal=255,255,255	// Text and border of tooltip when you hover over something (Linux only?).
ForegroundActive=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundInactive=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundLink=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundNegative=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundNeutral=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundPositive=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundVisited=255,0,255		// --

[Colors:View]
BackgroundNormal=50,50,50		// Background color of some dropdown lists and inputs, and also the layer list.
BackgroundAlternate=40,40,40	// Some lists (like keyboard shortcuts list) alternate between 2 background colors, this is the second one.
DecorationFocus=255,0,255		// --
DecorationHover=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundNormal=255,255,255	// Some text on the UI and inputs and dropdowns, and other input colors like borders/lines/checkboxes.
ForegroundLink=255,240,200		// Text links on the UI, like "development fund" url link.
ForegroundActive=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundInactive=150,150,150	// Placeholder text on text inputs, mostly the one that says "Search..."
ForegroundNegative=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundNeutral=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundPositive=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundVisited=255,0,255		// --

[Colors:Window]
BackgroundNormal=80,80,80		// The main docker background
BackgroundAlternate=255,0,255	// --
DecorationFocus=255,0,255		// --
DecorationHover=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundNormal=255,255,255	// Generic text colors, some buttons and dropdown arrows etc.
ForegroundActive=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundInactive=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundLink=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundNegative=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundNeutral=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundPositive=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundVisited=255,0,255		// --

[Colors:Complementary]
BackgroundNormal=255,0,255		// --
BackgroundAlternate=255,0,255	// --
DecorationFocus=255,0,255		// --
DecorationHover=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundNormal=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundActive=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundInactive=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundLink=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundNegative=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundNeutral=255,0,255		// --
ForegroundPositive=255,0,255	// --
ForegroundVisited=255,0,255		// --

[General]
ColorScheme=SUN					// ?
Name=SUN						// Name that shows up in the theme selector.
shadeSortColumn=true			// ?

[KDE]
contrast=2						// ?

[WM]
activeBackground=255,0,255		// --
activeBlend=255,0,255			// --
activeForeground=255,0,255		// --
inactiveBackground=255,0,255	// --
inactiveBlend=255,0,255			// --
inactiveForeground=255,0,255	// --

The settings are overall very random and bad, it's hard to make a theme be the way you want. For example ColorEffects:Disabled works completely differently on text than it does on icons, and there's some pale haze drawn on top of button colors so the color you put in is inaccurate.

Krita theme is just a whatever.colors file with all of that in it (without comments). Here's the above theme without comments:

[ColorEffects:Disabled]
Color=0,0,0
ColorAmount=0
ColorEffect=0
ContrastAmount=0.5
ContrastEffect=1
IntensityAmount=0
IntensityEffect=0

[ColorEffects:Inactive]
Enable=true
ChangeSelectionColor=false
Color=0,0,0
ColorAmount=0.1
ColorEffect=2
ContrastAmount=0
ContrastEffect=0
IntensityAmount=0
IntensityEffect=0

[Colors:Button]
BackgroundNormal=90,90,90
BackgroundAlternate=255,0,255
DecorationFocus=255,0,255
DecorationHover=255,0,255
ForegroundNormal=255,255,255
ForegroundActive=255,0,255
ForegroundNegative=255,0,255
ForegroundInactive=255,0,255
ForegroundLink=255,0,255
ForegroundNeutral=255,0,255
ForegroundPositive=255,0,255
ForegroundVisited=255,0,255

[Colors:Selection]
BackgroundNormal=140,125,60
BackgroundAlternate=255,0,255
DecorationFocus=255,0,255
DecorationHover=255,0,255
ForegroundNormal=255,255,255
ForegroundActive=255,0,255
ForegroundInactive=255,0,255
ForegroundLink=255,0,255
ForegroundNegative=255,0,255
ForegroundNeutral=255,0,255
ForegroundPositive=255,0,255
ForegroundVisited=255,0,255

[Colors:Tooltip]
BackgroundNormal=0,0,0
BackgroundAlternate=255,0,255
DecorationFocus=255,0,255
DecorationHover=255,0,255
ForegroundNormal=255,255,255
ForegroundActive=255,0,255
ForegroundInactive=255,0,255
ForegroundLink=255,0,255
ForegroundNegative=255,0,255
ForegroundNeutral=255,0,255
ForegroundPositive=255,0,255
ForegroundVisited=255,0,255

[Colors:View]
BackgroundNormal=50,50,50
BackgroundAlternate=40,40,40
DecorationFocus=255,0,255
DecorationHover=255,0,255
ForegroundNormal=255,255,255
ForegroundActive=255,0,255
ForegroundInactive=150,150,150
ForegroundLink=255,240,200
ForegroundNegative=255,0,255
ForegroundNeutral=255,0,255
ForegroundPositive=255,0,255
ForegroundVisited=255,0,255

[Colors:Window]
BackgroundNormal=80,80,80
BackgroundAlternate=255,0,255
DecorationFocus=255,0,255
DecorationHover=255,0,255
ForegroundNormal=255,255,255
ForegroundActive=255,0,255
ForegroundInactive=255,0,255
ForegroundLink=255,0,255
ForegroundNegative=255,0,255
ForegroundNeutral=255,0,255
ForegroundPositive=255,0,255
ForegroundVisited=255,0,255

[Colors:Complementary]
BackgroundNormal=255,0,255
BackgroundAlternate=255,0,255
DecorationFocus=255,0,255
DecorationHover=255,0,255
ForegroundNormal=255,0,255
ForegroundActive=255,0,255
ForegroundInactive=255,0,255
ForegroundLink=255,0,255
ForegroundNegative=255,0,255
ForegroundNeutral=255,0,255
ForegroundPositive=255,0,255
ForegroundVisited=255,0,255

[General]
ColorScheme=SUN
Name=SUN
shadeSortColumn=true

[KDE]
contrast=2

[WM]
activeBackground=255,0,255
activeBlend=255,0,255
activeForeground=255,0,255
inactiveBackground=255,0,255
inactiveBlend=255,0,255
inactiveForeground=255,0,255

Download

Download SUN.colors - 2 KB

To use this theme, move it into your color-schemes folder. It is in the Krita resources folder which you can find through Krita Settings -> Configure Krita... -> General -> Resources -> Resource Folder. For me it is:

Windows: C:/Users/Tsun/AppData/Roaming/krita/color-schemes

Linux: /home/tsun/.local/krita/color-schemes