When you try to paint a texture in Maya, it doesn’t create color managed file nodes (@#$%&!). Yeah I mean it. 🙂
By the way, the fact that they didn’t fix this for years is a bit disappointing.

Texture painting has several issues in Maya. This does not solve the main one.

This is how you fix the file node problem:

1. Find this file: art3dPaintAssignFileTextures.mel
   Usually it is here:  Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2017\scripts\others
2. Open it. Go to line 165.
   Change that to this:string $texture = `shadingNode -asTexture -isColorManaged file`;The only difference is the  -isColorManaged flag.
3. Save the file. Restart Maya.

Now, you are a bit happier.

Don’t forget! You can paint textures only if you use standard Maya shaders.
(Lambert, Blinn, Phong, etc.)

How to Paint:

1. Save the scene.
2. Select the mesh.
3. Assign a standard a Maya shader.
4. Activate the 3D Paint tool (Rendering menu set -> Texturing).
5. Select the Attribute you want to paint (Color, Bump, etc.).
6. Assign a texture (format, resolution, etc.).
7. Paint the texture.
8. Save the Texture.

Cheers, D