Useful sRGB AdobeRGB test images?

[M.Chapman]

As part of trying to get a deeper understanding of the implications of editing in AdobeRGB colour space, when the end result I need (for Alamy and other libraries) is an sRGB file, I have been investigating the capabilities of my own display and effect on my workflow by producing some test images which I have posted online here.

 

Any comments welcome.

Can those with wide gamut monitors confirm whether they can see all of the 9 concentric rings (the darker lines) in the AdobeRGB version of the chart?

 

Mark

Edited June 21, 2020 by M.Chapman
Added - (the darker lines), Updated the URL

[ReeRay]

Imac 2013 27" fully calibrated using Spyder Pro 4

 

I can see all the 9 concentric rings clearly with the sRGB chart. The AdobeRGB chart shows clipping in the extreme of the red channel on the last 2 of the rings only.

 

 

[Phil Crean]

I can see 10 rings on both!!!  Adobe more vivid colour overall.

9 Grey scale squares. Adobe has a noticeably deeper black and slightly brighter white.

iMac Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017

 

Phil

[geogphotos]

Just now, Phil Crean said:

I can see 10 rings on both!!!  Adobe more vivid colour overall.

9 Grey scale squares. Adobe has a noticeably deeper black and slightly brighter white.

iMac Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017

 

Phil

 

 

Also 10 rings, was too shy to say!

[M.Chapman]

OK great. Can those that see all the rings (10 rings, 9 darker concentric circles) try the following?

 

Download the AdobeRGB TIF file from here https://drive.google.com/open?id=14Gyl0pAyrsrIyD43c8AwDX3TB80vX15y. Use the download button at top right of the page that opens. Don't use "right click - save as", or you may get the preview image that Google seem to convert to sRGB.

 

Open in PS or the editor of your choice. You should be able to see all the rings (if your working space is set to AdobeRGB or higher).

Now save as an sRGB jpg (as if submitting to Alamy).

Now open the sRGB jpg in your editor (to inspect the image Alamy will receive). Do you still see all the rings, or do you now see an area of clipping?

 

If you do, how is it possible (if working in AdobeRGB on a wide gamut monitor) to see that this clipping is going to occur before the AdobeRGB TIF file is saved as sRGB, without actually doing it and then reopening the file? Does turning on soft proofing reveal that clipping is going to happen?

 

I'm just trying to get my head around the implications on my workflow (to produce sRGB images for Alamy and other libraries) of upgrading to a wide gamut monitor. (If it wasn't for the lockdown I'd have gone into the Apple Store and tested it for myself). 

 

Mark

Edited June 10, 2020 by M.Chapman

[Broad Norfolk]

Thanks for sharing that, Mark. Very interesting.

All rings good on sRGB for me but clipping on the outer red and into magenta on AdobeRGB. As has been mentioned, I also find that the grey scale squares on AdobeRGB appear to be a bit more 'punchy' (better contrast wise?).

Jim. 

[ReeRay]

9 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

OK great. Can those that see all the rings (10 rings, 9 darker concentric circles) try the following?

 

Download the AdobeRGB TIF file from here https://drive.google.com/open?id=14Gyl0pAyrsrIyD43c8AwDX3TB80vX15y

 

Open in PS or the editor of your choice. You should be able to see all the rings (if your working space is set to AdobeRGB or higher).

Now save as an sRGB jpg (as if submitting to Alamy).

Now open the sRGB jpg in your editor to inspect the image Alamy will receive. Do you still see all the rings, or do you now see an area of clipping?

 

If you do, how is it possible (if working in AdobeRGB on a wide gamut monitor) to see that this clipping is going to occur before the AdobeRGB TIF file is saved as sRGB, without actually doing it and then reopening the file. Does turning on soft proofing reveal that clipping is going to happen?

 

I'm just trying to get my head around the implications on my workflow (to produce sRGB images for Alamy and other libraries) of upgrading to a wide gamut monitor. (If it wasn't for the lockdown I'd have gone into the Apple Store and tested it for myself). 

 

Mark

Did as you ask, and a lot worse in sRGB saved for Alamy. Lots of clipping in both the red and magenta channels. Tested against a AdobeRGB jpeg which looks good and no loss.

Edited June 10, 2020 by ReeRay

[M.Chapman]

51 minutes ago, geogphotos said:

 

 

Also 10 rings, was too shy to say!

 

  I should have said "Can you see the 9 slightly darker concentric lines?" as it's those that fade way into the coloured "donut" underneath.

 

Mark

Edited June 10, 2020 by M.Chapman

[M.Chapman]

2 minutes ago, ReeRay said:

Did as you ask, and a lot worse in sRGB saved for Alamy. Lots of clipping in both the red and magenta channels. 

 

Thanks. OK that's as expected. At the moment I work in sRGB colour space on an sRGB monitor (simples...). So I can see if clipping is going to happen during the editing phase.

If I was working in AdobeRGB colour space with a wide gamut monitor the clipping won't be visible until after I've saved the sRGB jpg and reopened it (which is too late). What would I have to do to see that clipping is going to occur during the editing phase? Does soft proofing work? It's hard to see the effect on my sRGB monitor.

 

Mark

[ReeRay]

6 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

 

Thanks. OK that's as expected. At the moment I work in sRGB colour space on an sRGB monitor (simples...). So I can see if clipping is going to happen during the editing phase.

If I was working in AdobeRGB colour space with a wide gamut monitor the clipping won't be visible until after I've saved the sRGB jpg and reopened it (which is too late). What would I have to do to see that clipping is going to occur during the editing phase? Does soft proofing work? It's hard to see the effect on my sRGB monitor.

 

Mark

 

Above me now, hopefully someone else will chip in. 

 

[MDM]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

 

Thanks. OK that's as expected. At the moment I work in sRGB colour space on an sRGB monitor (simples...). So I can see if clipping is going to happen during the editing phase.

If I was working in AdobeRGB colour space with a wide gamut monitor the clipping won't be visible until after I've saved the sRGB jpg and reopened it (which is too late). What would I have to do to see that clipping is going to occur during the editing phase? Does soft proofing work? It's hard to see the effect on my sRGB monitor.

 

Mark

 

Mark - As discussed by email recently, you will not be able to see the wider gamut of AdobeRGB on a monitor that is sRGB only. So it is not hard, it is actually impossible. You can produce charts until you are blue (or a colour that you can't see) in the face but if the monitor can't display the colour then that it can't display the colour. It is what it is as the man said.

 

Soft-proofing in Lightroom (recommended over Photoshop) will show you that there are colours that are out of gamut but you still won't be able to see them. With a decent wide gamut monitor it is possible to change the colour space in hardware so you can switch from your calibration profile to AdobeRGB and sRGB among others. This can also be emulated in Photoshop by changing the working colour space.

 

So I can see all the colours of your charts in AdobeRGB (monitor or Photoshop) but lose some of the reds in sRGB. A very important thing to keep in mind though is that it is important to view the image in the tagged colour space. So the sRGB image looks really washed out when viewed in AdobeRGB space but looks fine in sRGB space. 

 

One idea that is definitely going out the window is that "sRGB is best for web use as most monitors are only sRGB". Clearly Apple's monitors have a wider colour gamut than sRGB as evidenced by Phil's 2017 iMac and even it seems ReeRay's 2013 model as they would not be able to see the AdobeRGB colours that are out of gamut. Also more recent iPads and I am guessing iPhones have a wider gamut than sRGB. There is also the issue of colour management in web browsers but that is another story.

 

The bottom line is that one has no idea on what device any image will be used and whether the app used to view is colour managed or not. These days I just tag all my website images as AdobeRGB, as my target market and clients are most likely using smart phones (often newish) so there is a good chance that the device is wider gamut than sRGB. Alamy's strategy of converting to sRGB and then removing the tag must make sense to them I guess.

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by MDM

[MDM]

2 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

 

Thanks. OK that's as expected. At the moment I work in sRGB colour space on an sRGB monitor (simples...). So I can see if clipping is going to happen during the editing phase.

If I was working in AdobeRGB colour space with a wide gamut monitor the clipping won't be visible until after I've saved the sRGB jpg and reopened it (which is too late). What would I have to do to see that clipping is going to occur during the editing phase? Does soft proofing work? It's hard to see the effect on my sRGB monitor.

 

Mark

 

Just reading back through that the solution is simple. If you are using a good wide gamut monitor that allows you to switch colour space in the hardware, then you could simply set the monitor to sRGB space. Or in Photoshop set the colour space to sRGB - in other words don't work in AdobeRGB. But that does not make sense to me if you have a wide gamut monitor (or not). I think it is better to work in AdobeRGB and then save an sRGB version Convert to profile in Photoshop or just export an sRGB version in Lightroom (which has a much wider colour space again). Then with your hypothetical wide gamut monitor you could change the colour space at the flick of a mouse or a button to see what it will look like in sRGB space. The fact that Alamy remove the tag anyway and provide an untagged image with the presumed assumption that most buyers will be viewing on sRGB devices (unlikely) makes most of this seem rather futile. 

 

[Harry Harrison]

1 hour ago, MDM said:

Alamy's strategy of converting to sRGB and then removing the tag must make sense to them I guess.

We can't be sure but I suppose they made that decision when the vast majority of people (apart from some imaging professionals with higher end displays) were looking at the images on sRGB displays. I presume that they simply can't contemplate providing a mixture of sRGB and aRGB images to the client depending on how they were uploaded, how would they explain it anyway? Now that evidently wider gamut displays have gone more mainstream then surely there is now an argument to tweak their downloads to add the sRGB tag, but then of course none of us can understand why they don't do that anyway.

[MDM]

40 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

We can't be sure but I suppose they made that decision when the vast majority of people (apart from some imaging professionals with higher end displays) were looking at the images on sRGB displays. I presume that they simply can't contemplate providing a mixture of sRGB and aRGB images to the client depending on how they were uploaded, how would they explain it anyway? Now that evidently wider gamut displays have gone more mainstream then surely there is now an argument to tweak their downloads to add the sRGB tag, but then of course none of us can understand why they don't do that anyway.

I guess it makes life simple for them and by far the most common end usage now is online rather than print where the difference is far more critical. There was a time when Alamy requested images be tagged with AdobeRGB profiles.The new policy of course ignores the fact that wide gamut displays (including portable devices) have become much more common and web browsers now appear to use colour management but most people, buyers and viewers, are not that discerning  

 

What is also clear is that most photographers don’t know much about colour management in any case. If you are only supplying stock to Alamy then it probably doesn’t matter anyway. If you are printing images yourself then it is vital to use a colour managed workflow. 

Edited June 10, 2020 by MDM

[Allan Bell]

4 hours ago, ReeRay said:

Imac 2013 27" fully calibrated using Spyder Pro 4

 

I can see all the 9 concentric rings clearly with the sRGB chart. The AdobeRGB chart shows clipping in the extreme of the red channel on the last 2 of the rings only.

 

 

 

Ditto

 

Allan

 

[M.Chapman]

2 hours ago, MDM said:

Mark - As discussed by email recently, you will not be able to see the wider gamut of AdobeRGB on a monitor that is sRGB only. So it is not hard, it is actually impossible. You can produce charts until you are blue (or a colour that you can't see) in the face but if the monitor can't display the colour then that it can't display the colour.

I must confess to being slightly disappointed that you perhaps think I might not already know that... It's not what the charts are trying to do. They were designed for those with sRGB or AdobeRGB monitors to help check that their setup can render subtle variations in intensity of colours at the periphery of the sRGB and AdobeRGB colour spaces. I think they achieve that quite well. In my case I was also interested to see how my own system fared. Although I have a lower spec monitor, the exact range of colours it can render will depend on the primaries it uses. So this test gives me an insight into which colours in sRGB or AdobeRGB space aren't being rendered by my display. Yes I can't see exactly colours that are missing, but the charts show where clipping is going on. They also show, with some clarity, (by downloading the AdobeRGB version opening in PS and saving as sRGB) the hazards of creating sRGB images in AdobeRGB working space without taking additional steps (e.g soft-proofing).

 

3 hours ago, MDM said:

So I can see all the colours of your charts in AdobeRGB (monitor or Photoshop) but lose some of the reds in sRGB.

Ignoring the colours you can see (which should be more intense in AdobeRGB on a wide gamut display), I assume that you can clearly see 9 complete 360 deg concentric circular lines on both charts?

 

2 hours ago, MDM said:

A very important thing to keep in mind though is that it is important to view the image in the tagged colour space. So the sRGB image looks really washed out when viewed in AdobeRGB space but looks fine in sRGB space. 

Agreed. Shame Alamy ships images without profiles....

 

3 hours ago, MDM said:

One idea that is definitely going out the window is that "sRGB is best for web use as most monitors are only sRGB". Clearly Apple's monitors have a wider colour gamut than sRGB as evidenced by Phil's 2017 iMac and even it seems ReeRay's 2013 model as they would not be able to see the AdobeRGB colours that are out of gamut. Also more recent iPads and I am guessing iPhones have a wider gamut than sRGB. There is also the issue of colour management in web browsers but that is another story.

Yes, I make that comment at the bottom of the webpage. It's one of the reasons I am looking at the implications of updating to a wide gamut monitor whilst still needing to easily produce sRGB images for Alamy and others.

 

1 hour ago, MDM said:

Just reading back through that the solution is simple. If you are using a good wide gamut monitor that allows you to switch colour space in the hardware, then you could simply set the monitor to sRGB space. Or in Photoshop set the colour space to sRGB - in other words don't work in AdobeRGB. But that does not make sense to me if you have a wide gamut monitor (or not). I think it is better to work in AdobeRGB and then save an sRGB version Convert to profile in Photoshop or just export an sRGB version in Lightroom (which has a much wider colour space again). Then with your hypothetical wide gamut monitor you could change the colour space at the flick of a mouse or a button to see what it will look like in sRGB space. The fact that Alamy remove the tag anyway and provide an untagged image with the presumed assumption that most buyers will be viewing on sRGB devices (unlikely) makes most of this seem rather futile. 

 

Although working in sRGB workspace solves the WYSYWIG problem (on screen in PS will match the sRGB jpeg) , I agree that working in sRGB space makes little sense if investing in a wide gamut monitor. Another solution might be soft proofing, but I can't get it to work properly in PS (it just doesn't give  reliable prediction of the end result). Do you know what's wrong with soft-proofing in PS? I'd noticed that LR soft-proofing seems better (at least the histogram changes), but I don't tend to use LR.

 

Your final solution maybe the best idea. So are you able to confirm the following? Assuming you can see 9 concentric rings on the AdobeRGB chart when your monitor is in AdobeRGB mode, what happens when you flick the switch and put it into sRGB mode? Do you see the clipping effect? That's what I'd need.

 

Mark

[M.Chapman]

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

Now that evidently wider gamut displays have gone more mainstream then surely there is now an argument to tweak their downloads to add the sRGB tag, but then of course none of us can understand why they don't do that anyway.

 

Absolutely. In line with trying to preserve licence fees, Alamy needs to offer a superior product that makes the best of the latest device displays.

 

Step 1 - Add sRGB tag to ALL existing images in the library

Step 2 - Recommend contributors to upload in AdobeRGB and preserve the profile info. Offer customer the option downloading in AdobeRGB (if available) or sRGB format. Conversion of AdobeRGB to sRGB could be done "on the fly" so Alamy wouldn't need to store both versions. Images would be supplied with AdobeRGB or sRGB tag/profile attached.

 

Mark

[Harry Harrison]

16 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

Offer customer the option downloading in AdobeRGB (if available) or sRGB format. Conversion of AdobeRGB to sRGB could be done "on the fly" so Alamy wouldn't need to store both versions. Images would be supplied with AdobeRGB or sRGB tag/profile attached.

I suppose I'm thinking that they might not want to confuse their potential buyers when presumably the vast majority (I'm guessing here) only need sRGB. I suppose you would need to be in the higher end book or magazine publishing world to know how much that matters to them and if indeed offering images in aRGB would be a commercial advantage.

[MDM]

29 minutes ago, M.Chapman said:

I must confess to being slightly disappointed that you perhaps think I might not already know that... It's not what the charts are trying to do. They were designed for those with sRGB or AdobeRGB monitors to help check that their setup can render subtle variations in intensity of colours at the periphery of the sRGB and AdobeRGB colour spaces. I think they achieve that quite well. In my case I was also interested to see how my own system fared. Although I have a lower spec monitor, the exact range of colours it can render will depend on the primaries it uses. So this test gives me an insight into which colours in sRGB or AdobeRGB space aren't being rendered by my display. Yes I can't see exactly colours that are missing, but the charts show where clipping is going on. They also show, with some clarity, (by downloading the AdobeRGB version opening in PS and saving as sRGB) the hazards of creating sRGB images in AdobeRGB working space without taking additional steps (e.g soft-proofing).

 

Ignoring the colours you can see (which should be more intense in AdobeRGB on a wide gamut display), I assume that you can clearly see 9 complete 360 deg concentric circular lines on both charts?

 

Agreed. Shame Alamy ships images without profiles....

 

Yes, I make that comment at the bottom of the webpage. It's one of the reasons I am looking at the implications of updating to a wide gamut monitor whilst still needing to easily produce sRGB images for Alamy and others.

 

 

Although working in sRGB workspace solves the WYSYWIG problem (on screen in PS will match the sRGB jpeg) , I agree that working in sRGB space makes little sense if investing in a wide gamut monitor. Another solution might be soft proofing, but I can't get it to work properly in PS (it just doesn't give  reliable prediction of the end result). Do you know what's wrong with soft-proofing in PS? I'd noticed that LR soft-proofing seems better (at least the histogram changes), but I don't tend to use LR.

 

Your final solution maybe the best idea. So are you able to confirm the following? Assuming you can see 9 concentric rings on the AdobeRGB chart when your monitor is in AdobeRGB mode, what happens when you flick the switch and put it into sRGB mode? Do you see the clipping effect? That's what I'd need.

 

Mark

 

Cutting to the chase and the last paragraph, yes I said that first thing last week when you sent me the first lot of charts - if I switch to sRGB then it clips the AdobeRGB colours. And I see all the colours in AdobeRGB or with the monitor set to my normal calibration profile. I was not intending to be in any way insulting to your fine intellect. It is just that I answered all of this last week in relation to the previous charts and nothing has changed so I was gently taking the p - please take it that way. To be honest, the only thing I have learned from this thread is that older iMacs appear to have a wider gamut than sRGB.

 

I don't know what is wrong with Photoshop soft proofing but Lightroom is much better and easier to use. However, it will not show you the missing colours on an sRGB monitor, just that something is missing. I have seen this said elsewhere but can't recall where - perhaps on the Australian Image Science site which is excellent.

 

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by MDM

[M.Chapman]

1 hour ago, MDM said:

Cutting to the chase and the last paragraph, yes I said that first thing last week when you sent me the first lot of charts - if I switch to sRGB then it clips the AdobeRGB colours.

 

So you did - thanks for reminding me. That's good news.

 

Mark

[Betty LaRue]

Even on my 3 year old iPad, I see all 9 rings in sRGB and aRGB. I notice the colors are more saturated in aRGB.

[Harry Harrison]

I don't have a Retina display or an Ipad but it seems that in 2015 Apple started to use a different colour space for their 'Pro' products (they may use it for everything by now), as do Microsoft for their Surface Pro. This is DCI-P3 and is described here in an article posted on 17th March 2017:

 

https://creativepro.com/how-do-p3-displays-affect-your-workflow/

 

According to the article DCI-P3  was (in March 2017) becoming the standard colour space for professional 4K & 8K video, so-called 'Ultra HD Premium' and so moving into mass market high-end TVs & Home Cinema.

 

Some quotes from the article:

 

"It’s trickier for workflows involving applications that don’t use color management, such as some web browsers, video editing applications, and web design software. Applications that don’t use system-level color management may display oversaturated colors on a P3 or Adobe RGB display because they’ll incorrectly assume the display is sRGB-based."

 

"Some wide-gamut displays let you limit their gamut to sRGB in the display itself, independently of the computer. This can be a good way to prevent oversaturated colors in non-color-managed workflows. But some wide-gamut displays, including Apple P3 displays, don’t have that option. Another option is to connect an inexpensive sRGB display to your computer and view non-color-managed content on that display."

 

"It used to be that wide gamut display issues weren’t something most people ran into unless they made a conscious decision to buy an Adobe RGB monitor. But now that the price of Adobe RGB displays has gone down, and Apple and Microsoft are selling millions of devices with P3 displays to consumers, wide gamut is rapidly going mainstream."

 

There's also a good graphic demonstrating how colours that could be printed on an Epson 3880 cannot be displayed on an sRGB monitor. In fact P3 seems to be a better colour space for this than Adobe RGB as it doesn't appear to clip in the reds at all and only slightly more than Adobe RGB in the blues (though this just a 2D representation from ColorSync).

 

 

Edited June 11, 2020 by Harry Harrison

[Harry Harrison]

Also from Apple:

 

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/821/

 

Note that, as he says, he is using an sRGB projection system so can only simulate the differences in richness of the P3 colours visually, essentially by muting the sRGB example for the parrots. Iphone 7 onwards uses P3.

Edited June 11, 2020 by Harry Harrison

[MDM]

1 hour ago, Harry Harrison said:

I don't have a Retina display or an Ipad but it seems that in 2015 Apple started to use a different colour space for their 'Pro' products (they may use it for everything by now), as do Microsoft for their Surface Pro. This is DCI-P3 and is described here in an article posted on 17th March 2017:

 

https://creativepro.com/how-do-p3-displays-affect-your-workflow/

 

According to the article DCI-P3  was (in March 2017) becoming the standard colour space for professional 4K & 8K video, so-called 'Ultra HD Premium' and so moving into mass market high-end TVs & Home Cinema.

 

Some quotes from the article:

 

"It’s trickier for workflows involving applications that don’t use color management, such as some web browsers, video editing applications, and web design software. Applications that don’t use system-level color management may display oversaturated colors on a P3 or Adobe RGB display because they’ll incorrectly assume the display is sRGB-based."

 

"Some wide-gamut displays let you limit their gamut to sRGB in the display itself, independently of the computer. This can be a good way to prevent oversaturated colors in non-color-managed workflows. But some wide-gamut displays, including Apple P3 displays, don’t have that option. Another option is to connect an inexpensive sRGB display to your computer and view non-color-managed content on that display."

 

"It used to be that wide gamut display issues weren’t something most people ran into unless they made a conscious decision to buy an Adobe RGB monitor. But now that the price of Adobe RGB displays has gone down, and Apple and Microsoft are selling millions of devices with P3 displays to consumers, wide gamut is rapidly going mainstream."

 

There's also a good graphic demonstrating how colours that could be printed on an Epson 3880 cannot be displayed on an sRGB monitor. In fact P3 seems to be a better colour space for this than Adobe RGB as it doesn't appear to clip in the reds at all and only slightly more than Adobe RGB in the blues (though this just a 2D representation from ColorSync).

 

 

 

Good post Harry. Things are definitely changing although the sRGB lowest common denominator is likely to be around for some time yet. A lot of this is driven by advances in TV technology and there are three aspects to it. One is high definition (HD going to 4K and 8K) which is the resolution, another is the colour space (in the video world things are really moving as well) and the third is HDR (high dynamic range video). These three are effectively independent but moving along rapidly. You only have to take a walk through John Lewis TV department (remember what that was like) to see how incredible the advances have been although the world of broadcasting has a long way to go to catch up with the technology. 

Edited June 11, 2020 by MDM

[M.Chapman]

On 11/06/2020 at 07:52, MDM said:

 

Good post Harry. Things are definitely changing although the sRGB lowest common denominator is likely to be around for some time yet. A lot of this is driven by advances in TV technology and there are three aspects to it. One is high definition (HD going to 4K and 8K) which is the resolution, another is the colour space (in the video world things are really moving as well) and the third is HDR (high dynamic range video). These three are effectively independent but moving along rapidly. You only have to take a walk through John Lewis TV department (remember what that was like) to see how incredible the advances have been although the world of broadcasting has a long way to go to catch up with the technology. 

+1

Interesting article and video. Although I do think his video examples are massively over-exaggerated. He said they are "renditions" and "somewhat exaggerated" but as a result they are quite misleading IMO. Note how much even the "in gamut" areas of the parrot on the left change. 

 

I look forward to seeing a side by side comparison of one of my own images processed in sRGB and AdobeRGB (or P3Gamut) and rendered on a standard and wide gamut display when I next get a chance. The displays in John Lewis etc.  look really impressive, but I'm wary that they are also showing images and videos that have been artificially "pumped up" in terms of sharpening and saturation. They are, after all, trying to sell us something (and so are Apple). We're going to reach the state where the real world looks very dull and boring compared to the renditions we see on our screens.

 

Nevertheless, that's the way the market is going, so the ability to edit/produce/sell wide gamut images is going to be more and more important. I think it's something that Alamy urgently need to address. Converting images submitted in wide gamut (e.g. AdobeRGB) to smaller gamut (sRGB) and then shipping without profiles is really not good. I urge them to establish "wide gamut" support and ship with profiles attached. (It's such a shame they have already discarded any wide gamut information in the images they have in the library, so they have to start from scratch*). It's a fiercely competitive market and having a "wide gamut" offering will help them to survive.  Wide gamut displays and fully colour managed devices and browsers are the new normal.

 

*Something Alamy could perhaps offer contributors is an easier way to replace/update existing images with wide gamut or freshly edited versions?

 

Mark

Edited June 12, 2020 by M.Chapman