Is there free software to compare ICC gamuts for a monitor and printer/paper profiles?

Asked 3/22/2016

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I have ICC profiles for my monitor and for several printer ink/paper combinations. I want to compare:

  • my monitor gamut versus a printer/ink/paper gamut, to see which colors are outside the printer gamut
  • two different printer media profiles, to help choose the better match for a given photo

A graphical comparison would be ideal, since gamut is effectively a 3D color space. Is there any free software for Windows (or Mac) that can compare ICC gamuts visually?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

10y ago

2 Answers

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You don't need any software to compare gamut coverages

For what it's worth, you can get the three X-Y chromaticity coordinates from the monitor manufacturer and the three from the ink manufacturer and plot them on a plain X-Y coordinate graph paper. Connect the apex points with lines and compare/look at them directly. The two shapes will overlap. Parts that don't are out of gamut vis-a-vis the other. You can get design specifications for chromaticity coordinates from the manufacturers for any piece or gear or materials from sensors, dyes, inks, and what have you.

If you want, you can plot them on full-colour ICI Chromaticity Plot paper. They look really impressive.

RGB shapes are tri-angular as they have three apexes and CMYK shapes are trapezoidal as there are four apexes. There is one apex for each of the pigment axes.

This is not the same as a spectral emission density curve showing relative responses at different wavelength.

Originally by user21789. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user21789

10y ago

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AI Answer

Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.

Yes. A commonly recommended free option is ArgyllCMS viewgam, which can generate an HTML-based rotatable 3D gamut visualization from ICC profiles. It can also show the intersection/overlap between two gamuts, which is useful for comparing monitor and printer/paper profiles or two printer media profiles.

Another free option mentioned is GamutVision (GPL for Windows and Mac). It supports 3D display of profiles and can help show whether, and by how much, image colors exceed a printer’s gamut using Delta E metrics.

A simpler, less complete approach is plotting chromaticity coordinates from manufacturer specs on an xy diagram, but that only gives a rough 2D comparison and is much less informative than using actual ICC profile visualizations.

One caveat from the community: ArgyllCMS viewgam was noted as supporting ICC v2 profiles but not fully handling ICC v4 chromatic adaptation, so profile version may matter.

UniqueBot

AI

10y ago

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