the last word

Photography meets digital computer technology. Photography wins -- most of the time.

  • site home
  • blog home
  • galleries
  • contact
  • underwater
  • the bleeding edge
You are here: Home / The Last Word / Adobe RGB gamut limitations

Adobe RGB gamut limitations

September 1, 2012 JimK Leave a Comment

In my last post, I made the assertion that, if you have a good printer, your printer can print colors you can’t represent in Adobe (1998) RGB, and therefore, you can’t see on a monitor with the Adobe RGB primaries.

I’d like to use this post to give some examples. In all the pictures to follow, I started with the profile of the printer/paper combination used for the example. I used Gamutvision to show what happens to the gamut if you convert images in that printer’s color space to Adobe RGB with relative colorimetric intent. Solid colors are successfully converted. The colors indicated by the wire-frame outlines are outside of the Adobe RGB gamut. The three dimensional graphs are in CIEL*a*b*, with the luminance axis running from bottom to top.

First, let’s look at Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper on an Epson 4900. The printer profile is Epson’s.

You can see that the Adobe RGB color space can’t represent some of the medium to dark blues and cyans that the printer can print. It also has trouble with some light yellows.

The Epson 4900 displays similar results when printing on Exhibition Fiber paper. This plot uses a profile that I made:

Matte papers don’t strain the Adobe displays nearly as much. Here’s what happens when you use an Epson 9800 and print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag:

There are just a few yellows, blues, and cyans that can’t be represented in Adobe RGB.

The Last Word

← Can you use a wide-gamut display? Design of a wide-gamut monitor →

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

January 2023
S M T W T F S
1234567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
293031  
« Dec    

Articles

  • About
    • Patents and papers about color
    • Who am I?
  • Good 35-70 MF lens
  • How to…
    • Backing up photographic images
    • How to change email providers
  • Lens screening testing
    • Equipment and Software
    • Examples
      • Bad and OK 200-600 at 600
      • Excellent 180-400 zoom
      • Fair 14-30mm zoom
      • Good 100-200 mm MF zoom
      • Good 100-400 zoom
      • Good 100mm lens on P1 P45+
      • Good 120mm MF lens
      • Good 18mm FF lens
      • Good 24-105 mm FF lens
      • Good 24-70 FF zoom
      • Good 35 mm FF lens
      • Good 60 mm lens on IQ3-100
      • Good 63 mm MF lens
      • Good 65 mm FF lens
      • Good 85 mm FF lens
      • Good and bad 25mm FF lenses
      • Good zoom at 24 mm
      • Marginal 18mm lens
      • Marginal 35mm FF lens
      • Mildly problematic 55 mm FF lens
      • OK 16-35mm zoom
      • OK 60mm lens on P1 P45+
      • OK Sony 600mm f/4
      • Pretty good 16-35 FF zoom
      • Pretty good 90mm FF lens
      • Problematic 400 mm FF lens
      • Tilted 20 mm f/1.8 FF lens
      • Tilted 30 mm MF lens
      • Tilted 50 mm FF lens
      • Two 15mm FF lenses
    • Found a problem – now what?
    • Goals for this test
    • Minimum target distances
      • MFT
      • APS-C
      • Full frame
      • Small medium format
    • Printable Siemens Star targets
    • Target size on sensor
      • MFT
      • APS-C
      • Full frame
      • Small medium format
    • Test instructions — postproduction
    • Test instructions — reading the images
    • Test instructions – capture
    • Theory of the test
    • What’s wrong with conventional lens screening?
  • Previsualization heresy
  • Privacy Policy
  • Recommended photographic web sites
  • Using in-camera histograms for ETTR
    • Acknowledgments
    • Why ETTR?
    • Normal in-camera histograms
    • Image processing for in-camera histograms
    • Making the in-camera histogram closely represent the raw histogram
    • Shortcuts to UniWB
    • Preparing for monitor-based UniWB
    • A one-step UniWB procedure
    • The math behind the one-step method
    • Iteration using Newton’s Method

Category List

Recent Comments

  • JimK on Picking a macro lens
  • Glenn Whorrall on Picking a macro lens
  • JimK on What pitch do you need to scan 6×6 TMax 100?
  • Hatzipavlis Peter on What pitch do you need to scan 6×6 TMax 100?
  • JeyB on Internal focusing 100ish macro lenses
  • JimK on How focus-bracketing systems work
  • Garry George on How focus-bracketing systems work
  • Rhonald on Format size and image quality
  • JimK on Internal focusing 100ish macro lenses
  • Darrel Crilley on Fuji 100-200/5.6 on GFX, Nikon 70-200/@2.8E, Apo-Sonnar 135 on Z7, revisited

Archives

Copyright © 2023 · Daily Dish Pro On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Unless otherwise noted, all images copyright Jim Kasson.