Last Updated on May 17, 2024 by Clark Omholt
One of the questions that often comes up for people who are color-critical is – “what range of colors is my monitor capable of showing?” This is frequently referred to as a monitor’s Color Gamut. While most monitors available for purchase are “Standard Gamut”, an increasing number are “Wide Gamut”. What’s the difference?
What Is a Wide Gamut Monitor?
Here’s the quick answer – any monitor with a color gamut larger than sRGB (Standard RGB) is considered Wide Gamut. Now we’ll go into more detail.
sRGB
Most of today’s low cost monitors (and an even higher percentage of older monitors) are made to achieve a Color Gamut similar to sRGB. This is a color space jointly designed by HP and Microsoft way back in the Dark Ages of color – 1996. sRGB has the same color gamut as Rec 709, a standard developed for high definition television a few years earlier.
In 1996 the internet was still in its infancy, and people putting images on the internet needed a color standard to publish to. Even at the time, sRGB was seen as a compromise color space, too small for many applications such as high end photography or printing. As the graphic below shows, even though sRGB is considerably larger than a typical printing press, there are areas in sRGB (notably Cyan) that clip the gamut of a printing press.
Or, if you’ve taken a photo of the sky above the Rocky Mountains on a sunny day, you might not be so happy about how it renders in sRGB. The photos below give you a sense. (And if you’re interested in learning more about taking photos in direct sunlight, see our blog entry.)
But sRGB did have the advantage of being achievable by most monitors available at the time and ended up becoming the defacto standard for the internet.
Wide Gamut
Color sophisticates were not happy with sRGB, and thankfully a few years later Adobe released Adobe RGB as an alternative working space in Photoshop and other products. Photographers embraced this space and started lobbying for monitors that could accurately show all the colors in AdobeRGB. Manufacturers eventually obliged – at a price.
As LCD monitor technology evolved, more Wide Gamut monitors became available. Starting in 2016, Apple decided all their iPhones and computer monitors would adhere to P3 color space, a color space borrowed from the world of cinema. The Samsung Galaxy family of Android phones now uses P3 as well. Given the ubiquity of smart phones, more display manufacturers are designing their monitors to achieve the P3 color gamut. Flagship monitors from leading manufacturers like BenQ, Dell, and Apple are achieving about 95% of P3.
As the chart below shows, AdobeRGB and P3 are both considerably larger, about 140% of sRGB. While AdobeRGB expands very far into green, P3 is stronger in Red.
FAQs on Wide Gamut Monitors
1. Do I need a wide gamut monitor?
The answer to this question is really application-based. For instance, if you are a photographer or graphic designer and would like to see your images rendered with the greatest color fidelity, then a wide gamut monitor makes sense. Or if you want to view a film as the director intended.
On the flip side, if you are mostly browsing the internet or doing spreadsheets, a wide gamut display might not be justified.
Gamers might want to invest in a wide gamut monitors, particularly if they play color-intensive games where accuracy matters in a competitive setting.
2. Do wide gamut monitors work for general image viewing?
Short answer, Yes. For instance, most content creators for the internet will tag their imagery as sRGB, which your browser will recognize. As long as your wide gamut display is properly calibrated, it will show all ranges of imagery faithfully.
3. How to calibrate a wide gamut monitor?
The process for calibrating a wide gamut monitor is the same as with standard gamut – measure some characteristics of your display and create an ICC profile. We recommend TruHu as the easiest and most cost-effective measurement-based solution available.
Read more: How to Calibrate Your Monitor on a Mac
Summary
If you are willing to spend $500 or more on your monitor, then you should be able to acquire a Wide Gamut monitor. This will enable you to see content as most people are seeing it on their smartphones. At a lower price, you are likely buying a “Standard Gamut” sRGB monitor.
