RGBGamuts

RGB gamuts describe the range of colors that can be produced when red, green, and blue primaries are combined in an RGB color space. A gamut is determined by the three primary colors, the white point, and the transfer function used to encode luminance. In practice, a gamut corresponds to a region in a chromaticity diagram; the boundary is often visualized as a triangle whose vertices are the chromaticities of the primaries. The perceptible color volume that a system can reproduce depends on display devices, backlight, optics, and processing, and is typically expressed in a color-coordinate space like CIELAB or CIECAM02.

Common RGB color spaces include sRGB, designed for consistency across web and consumer devices; Adobe RGB, which has a larger green primary and yields a larger printing gamut; ProPhoto RGB, even larger and favored for photography workflows; DCI-P3, used in digital cinema; Rec. 709 for HD television; Rec. 2020 for UHD and some HDR workflows. Each space defines a different triangle on the chromaticity diagram, and all can be used within ICC-based color management to map colors between devices.

Gamut mapping is the process of converting colors from one gamut to another, often involving perceptual or relative colorimetric rendering intents to preserve appearance or relative relationships. No real device can display the entire gamut of even the largest RGB spaces, so colors outside a display’s gamut are clipped or compressed. Proper color management, device calibration, and profile creation are essential to achieving consistent results across cameras, monitors, and printers.