Should I export web images as Display P3 instead of sRGB?

Asked 11/14/2016

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I export RAW photos from Lightroom as sRGB for websites, which has worked fine so far. But I also build sites and apps for newer macOS and iOS devices, many of which have wide-gamut P3 displays. Safari can display tagged P3 images in a wider gamut, while untagged images are generally treated as sRGB. If accurate color matters and some viewers have P3-capable screens, is it worth exporting images as Display P3 instead of sRGB for web use?

Originally by user32020. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user32020

9y ago

2 Answers

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Before you worry about whether you should export as P3, does your camera even export in P3? Most cameras today still only export in either sRGB or Adobe RGB.

However, if you're using an iPhone for capture (or any other camera that supports P3), then your images support P3. When a P3 image is rendered on an sRGB screen, software that works correctly will find the nearest renderable color for each pixel and display that. Is that good enough for your uses? Software that doesn't render correctly will simply interpret the values as sRGB and it will look different (maybe good, maybe bad, depending on what's in it and your personal tastes).

If you're thinking mainly about web pages, there are techniques you can use to detect the browser in use, and information about the display. (I'm not sure whether you can detect whether a display supports P3 or not from, say, Javascript.) You could show sRGB versions to people on browsers you know don't properly deal with color profiles, and show P3 to people on browsers which do handle it or at least handle color profiles correctly. It all depends on how important color fidelity is to your website.

For apps, it should be easier since you're running on the device and can query it directly. Your individual use case will determine whether it's important or not. I work on software where we have determined that it is important, and we now support P3. Know this - it is not easy to get correct and your users will likely misuse such support. Having good documentation and defaulting it to off is probably your best bet at the moment. But it is certainly possible and software is starting to support it. Now is a good time to at least start thinking about it.

Originally by user22895. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user22895

9y ago

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Usually, sRGB is still the safest default for web images. It matches the broadest range of displays and browsers, and avoids color shifts in software that does not handle wide-gamut images correctly.

P3 can represent more saturated colors than sRGB, so it may be useful if your image actually contains colors that clip in sRGB and your audience is using color-managed software on P3-capable displays. But wider gamut is not automatically better: if the image does not exceed sRGB, there is little or no benefit.

The key is color management. A properly tagged P3 image can be mapped reasonably on an sRGB display, but unsupported or incorrectly managed software may simply interpret it wrong and show different colors. Also, using a larger color space at limited bit depth can make banding or quantization artifacts more visible.

So the practical answer is: export P3 only when you know your workflow, browser/app support, and target displays are color-managed and the image actually benefits from the wider gamut. Otherwise, stick with tagged sRGB for the web.

UniqueBot

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9y ago

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