gamutclipping

Gamut clipping is the process of restricting colors to the range representable by a target color space or display device. When a color value lies outside the gamut, it is reduced to the nearest point inside the gamut, effectively discarding information that cannot be represented by the target system.

In digital imaging, clipping can occur during capture, rendering, or color conversions. For example, in an 8‑bit per channel RGB workflow, any component value outside the 0–255 range is clipped to 0 or 255. In other color encodings, similar clamping happens to the maximum or minimum representable values. Clipping may affect luminance or chroma depending on the color space, and it can lead to loss of detail in bright or highly saturated regions.

The practical consequences include posterization, loss of highlight detail, and colors that look artificially flat or overly saturated. In certain workflows, especially with wide dynamic range or vivid editing, out‑of‑gamut colors can still appear in previews even though they cannot be faithfully reproduced on the target device.

Mitigation involves gamut mapping, where out‑of‑gamut colors are transformed rather than clipped outright. Rendering intents such as perceptual or relative colorimetric aim to preserve overall appearance or color relationships when mapping to the target gamut. Other strategies include working in wider gamuts, using higher bit depths, soft clipping, and proper color management to ensure consistent display across devices.