Explained: What is colour gamut and how is it important for displays – Times of India

Colour Gamut of a screen is basically the range of colours that the particular display can reproduce. Every screen has a range of colours it can display, like some phone screens claim to display around 16.7 million colours. But, human eyes can see billions of colours, which is way more than what any available display can reproduce. This means the colour gamut of every screen is limited as they can’t produce all the colours.
Different displays reproduce colours differently as they come with various colour gamut ranges. For example, if you watch a YouTube video on your smartphone and again if you watch the same video on your PC, you will be able to notice the difference in colour profiles of different screens. This is because all displays can’t produce the same 16.7 million colours. This is the reason for two different displays to show different colours for the same content.
What makes colour gamut important for a display?
Content creators like photographers and videographers face a huge challenge when they are unable to reproduce the same colours all over the panel. This was the reason for standardising colour gamut to ensure the colours that cameras are shooting appear similar on all displays.
What is the Standard RGB colour gamut for displays
The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) came up with a standard colour gamut called Standard RGB (sRGB) to solve the problem of various displays reproducing different degrees of the same colour. It defined a minimum range of colours the displays need to reproduce for photos and videos to look almost similar in every display.
However, not all displays can reproduce 100 per cent sRGB colour gamut. But, the industry is trying to follow the standard and there are only minor differences that can be found on most modern displays. However, it is important for users to verify the percentage of the sRGB colour gamut the display covers. There are some modern displays that can reproduce way more colours than a regular display panel with a feature known as ‘Wide Colour Gamut’.
What is Adobe RGB colour gamut and how is it important for printing
Adobe introduced this colour gamut in 1998 to compete with sRGB to become the standard. But, it was rarely used as technology had some limitations earlier and didn’t gain traction until recently. The Adobe RGB is now the standard colour gamut for the printing industry as the colours in the sRGB gamut appear dull and lifeless on prints.
It is a wider colour gamut and can cover about 50 per cent of the visible spectrum, which is a lot more than sRGB. It simply means that Adobe RGB has a wider range of colours, where there are bigger differences between each colour. Most modern high-end displays target both the sRGB and Adobe RGB colour gamuts and list the coverage of both the gamuts as a percentage. So, users who need monitors for printing and other professional purposes, should opt for a screen with a wide colour gamut. Be more careful about the Adobe RGB coverage as almost all professional monitors come with 100 per cent sRGB coverage.
What is the DCI-P3 colour gamut and how does it help in film-making
DCI-P3 is another wide colour gamut, which is almost 25 percent wider than sRGB. To standardise colour reproduction for the cinema, the Society of Motion Pictures and Television Engineers introduced DCI-P3 colour gamut.
Movie and video makers use cameras capable of DCI-P3 to ensure the footage on the big screen appears as intended. Moreover, all modern cinema projectors can reproduce 100 percent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut.
Professionals prefer this colour gamut as it produces more realistic and vivid colours. Monitors that target professionals, lists their DCI-P3 coverage details along with their sRGB and Adobe RGB coverage percentages.
Colour gamuts that users should be aware about
Make sure the new display you are buying, covers the whole sRGB colour gamut or goes as close to the 100 per cent mark as possible. Any display becomes an option to consider if it covers a good amount of Adobe RGB or DCI-P3 along with 100 per cent sRGB. However, there are other gamuts like NTSC, which is a standard for TVs and covers 72% of the sRGB colour gamut.