This weeks blog is on one of the most important Photographic topics, and also the least understood. Why is that you say? Simple. It’s so complicated, and there are just as many opinions as there are stars in the galaxy… everyone of those opinions have different merits for different applications.
Below is a graph of the some of the many color gamuts. I’ve chosen this graph because these four color gamuts are the most important color gamuts as far as I’m concerned, for Photography and Video. These four color gamuts are at the root of most arguments or interpretations when it comes to photography. You’ve probably also heard of Pantone and CMYK too.
Basically? If a company like Home Depot for instance, has their logo represented in a very specific color of red, like Pantone Fiery Red 18-1664 TCX… and you print something for them? They better see that exact match. This is NOT left open to interpretation of any kind.
CMYK is basically a full color print process using those four inks. Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Key. (black) There is now also CMYK + processes that use 6 colors or 8 colors. CMYK print jobs are typically used in offset web printing presses. Your “full color” business cards, or a full color pamphlet, are typically printed by offset web printers. But not always… These items can also be printed by ink jet printers.
The image below is of an offset web press.
Color Management When It Comes To Photography
In the world of Photography the most common Color Gamut you will hear of is sRGB. sRGB is a standard RGB (red, green, blue) color space that HP and Microsoft created cooperatively in 1996 to use on monitors, printers, and the World Wide Web. It was subsequently standardized by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as IEC 61966-2-1:1999.
As you can see by the chart above sRGB is a larger color space than CMYK. Most television sets and computers use the sRGB colorspace. However! As you can see the Adobe RGB 1998 color space is MUCH larger. This means a far better representation of color when it comes to blending between say a light blue and a darker blue. (the color gamut identified as wide gamut RGB in the image above is the Pro Photo Color Gamut)
Pro Photo is an even larger color space… however… at this time, there is not one monitor that can show you all the colors possible in this color space. There is not one photo paper that can reproduce all the colors possible for Pro Photo either. Some of these colors? Yes, there are papers that can reproduce some of the Pro Photo Colorspace. But there is not one monitor that can show me those colors prior to printing.
The Image above illustrates what you see might not be what you print
So? If I can’t see them? Then I’m “guessing” how the print will look. Those out of gamut colors just might make my printed image look far worse than I would like.
So, I would also need to guess on the reprint. In the world of Photographic Printing, paper is the most expensive ingredient. So I personally would rather not waste it.
Enter Display Pro 3
Just when you thought you had all of this feldercarb down someone creates a new color space! In 2005 The Digital Cinema Initiative came up with DCI-P3. This was to be used in digital theatrical motion picture distribution. Display P3 is a variant developed by Apple Inc for wide gamut displays.
DCI-P3 colors are supported in CSS (Cascading Style Sheets, used in web pages) with Safari since 2017 and Google Chrome since March of 2023 web browsers. Yes, Apple was a long way out in front of the game. In this case almost 6 years!
So! Studying the image above a bit more we see that Display P3 is much larger than sRGB, and a bit smaller than Adobe RGB 1998. There is a BIG reason why the Apple Cinema Display introduced in 2015 was such a winner. That’s because the iMac 5K Retina Display using Display P3 as it’s color space, totally dominated the viewers color perceptions because of the 25% increase in colors over sRGB monitors seen before then!
To this day Apple monitors are now dominating internet traffic. Apple IOS holds a 67% market share and Android has 33%. The US smart phone market share is also Apple with 61.3%, Android at 22.03% and the rest made up by Motorola, Google, and Xiaomi, in that order. I’d personally never heard of Xiaomi until I researched this article.
So what does all of this stuff mean?
To summarize it very simply… If I can’t see it, and I can’t print it? Why do I need it? Pro Photo is simply not necessary at this time. I can obtain a full Adobe RGB 1998 monitor and I can print all of the Adobe RGB 1998 colorspace, so all of my editing systems are set and calibrated to that!
An 8-Bit image can display up to 16.7 million colors, while a 16-Bit image can display up to 281 trillion colors. 16-Bit images are more detailed and offer a wider range of colors, making them ideal for printing and editing. 8-Bit images are more popularly used for web graphics and small prints.
I calibrate my monitor using the Calibrite Color Colorimeter Display Pro HL Monitor Calibration device at least 2 times a week sometimes more, to keep my monitor exactly inline with the AdobeRGB 1998 Color Gamut. Yes, monitors can lose a bit of calibration over time, so it’s wise to stay up on this.
I edit my images in the Tiff format. This offers advantages over PSD files, and many improvements over 8 bit jpg images.
It’s Not What you Look At That Matters, It’s What You See.
So if you edit an image, looking at it with a non calibrated monitor, the colors you see can be off considerably! You can “cheat” a bit with an Apple 5K monitor with the brightness set no higher than 50%.
Even if you shoot Black and White, color is used to compose those images.
To Summarize…
Calibrate your Monitor. Or cheat a bit with an Apple 5K monitor set no brighter than 50%
Edit your images using the colorspace AdobeRGB1998 as 16bit tiff files.
When Placing your images on the web… Export as webP in Display Pro 3 Colorspace
When Printing Your Images Use A Lab That Accepts 16Bit Images In AdobeRGB1998
If you do not print your images as 16bit tiff files in AdobeRGB 1998 then you are losing a LOT of quality that can be obtained in your prints. If the lab you wish to print with is asking for an 8bit jpeg in sRGB? You are losing out on a lot of quality.
Did you buy that expensive camera because you only wanted to take pictures that were “good enough?” Or did you wish to compose nothing but the best? I wish my prints to represent my efforts, not just be “good enough.” Your millage may vary.
If 67% of all internet use is being viewed with Apple Devices, placing your images there using the Display Pro 3 color gamut will show your images much better than using sRGB jpegs, and to a larger audience.
