New Apple Products use Wide Gamut Color (P3 rather than Adobe RGB)

ArtAlt wrote:

Apple is bringing us more colors! That is, the new iPhones use the P3 gamut rather than being limited by the traditional sRGB. This continues a trend started with last years iMac and iPad Pro. I expect future MacBook Pro's will be P3.

Me too (iMac got there in October 2015, 9.7" iPad got there in March 2016, iPhone got there in September 2016, the next update of MBP will get it as well).

The press does not seem to have picked up on this transition very much but it might be the most significant part of Apple's announcement, because it means that if they are successful at setting this new standard, longer term we will all be viewing images with a wider array of colors, looking more natural and more vibrant.

In the shorter term, it has the potential to complicate the lives of photographers. Imagine if you deliver your traditional sRGB photographs to a client and they find that the colors are not as vibrant as the P3 images they just shot on their iPhone (not that they will have any idea that they are using a wider color gamut …).

I am still wondering if Apple will save DCI P3 JPEGs in 8-bit (P3 could really use 10-bit or more but then JPEG doesn't have a 10-bit or 16-bit option that I am aware of, though like the Life Photos feature I wouldn't put it past Apple to create their own new format). And whether Apple will push out P3 JPEGs when 'sharing' images. Sharing them to other iOS 10 devices should be save but what about Android devices?

I can’t say that I’m losing sleep over this, since a brilliantly crafted image in sRGB will stomp a mediocre image that has a few more colors, but it does present a potential complication to our lives. An image that is inadvertently presented on a device in the wrong color gamut will usually look either oddly flat or oddly over-saturated, like a badly calibrated screen.

We have been living in a world where it was safe to presume sRGB, so color management in hardware and software was optional from a practical standpoint.

It was safe to assume that your images would be limited for a lot of people to something roughly around sRGB in colour gamut (ie, most people would have no option to view more saturated colours). But it was not safe to assume that their display gamut matched sRGB well. If you wanted to get accurate colours you needed colour management for at least a decade. And most stuff on the Mac had colour management for a decade at least.

In photographic community, wide-gamut monitors began to spread a decade ago or so (I got mine eight years ago). Everybody using such a monitor was using colour management anyway.

What threw a spanner into the works were smartphones which (a) initially had a colour gamut noticeably below sRGB and (b) until iOS 9 and the iPad Pro (I think) didn't have colour management (so had to stick to something close to sRGB for a couple of years already).

What about Microsoft software, Windows-based computers, and Android devices. I guess we will see!

I don't expect too much from Android (not least because OS updates spread largely only via new phones). But Microsoft should have gotten on the CM train some time ago or we would have heard Mac users dismissing windows much more vigorously. All Adobe applications have been on Windows for a long while (Photoshop got there in 1992) and according to Wikipedia got CM in 1998. If Windows didn't have useable CM, Photographers wouldn't have used it for the last 15 years or so in significant numbers. IE might have been late but Firefox got CM at least a decade ago.

It was funny in the Apple keynote to see more than one speaker say "this has really great color on the iPhone 7 but you can't see it here cuz of the projector."

We've got a ways to go before it's standard. Meanwhile it helps that with your iPhone you can proof for at least P3...more expensive than say a second NEC monitor, but then again the NEC monitor can't make phone calls.... 

P3 is not very different than Adobe RGB if you read the specs and more truncated in certain areas of the spectrum, tailored for cine/TV technology. Presumably readers are sophisticated enough to understand the benefits of processing color in a big box, whatever you label that box and regardless of the limits of display technologies, electronic or print, and the limits of the end eyeball.

One must separate the box that crayons are put in from the crayons themselves.

iPhone 7 images will be JPEG sRGB. If they do not have correct color viewed on a non-Apple computer directly or posted to Facebook or whatever, if they do not have correct color when sent to the 95% of the Android using world the iPhone will be blamed. Apple surely knows this.

Vendors always have to accommodate to the sophistication of the buyer. If the buyer of commercial images is locked to Apple and does not understand basic color issues then the successful vendor accommodates to stupid--how is that any different than it has ever been?

johnbandry wrote:

Apparently the JPEG standard now supports 12 bit. Whether any software does is another matter.

http://petapixel.com/2014/01/22/jpeg-standard-gets-boost-will-support-12-bit-color-depth-lossless-compression/

There is also JPEG 2000 and JPEG XR (which support a range bit depth), two formats that also didn't go far.

bmoag wrote:

iPhone 7 images will be JPEG sRGB. If they do not have correct color viewed on a non-Apple computer directly or posted to Facebook or whatever, if they do not have correct color when sent to the 95% of the Android using world the iPhone will be blamed. Apple surely knows this.

While I generally agree, I wonder what all that talk about wide-gamut image capture of the iPhone 7 was. Are they limiting it (like they might with raw capture) to third-party apps?

Chris Mak wrote:

There are various levels of color management, and while windows has color management, it still does not use the monitor profile, but always assumes SRGB as the monitor gamut. So you still need all applications to have full color management, which is not a trivial thing: even a thouroughly professional raw editor like Capture 1 only had full color management with TIFF and JPEG images implemented in their latest update.

It all goes hopelessly wrong when files are shared with larger color gamuts than SRGB on displays that have a wider rhan SRGB color gamut. The image tags are properly handled, but because the monitor gamut is assumed SRGB, images in e.g. Adobe rgb are displayed overly saturated.

Windows 10 apps like Photos or the new Edge browser still do not have full color management, only firefox does as a browser. If content in the new wide Apple P3 gamut will be shared with windows browsers other than firefox on wide gamut displays, you still get the garish colors. It really is about time Microsoft would add full color management at an OS level, but they are not motivated. They started the srgb (with others) standard and seem to be very much attached to keeping it the standard.

Wow, I almost cannot believe that Windows is that much behind.

ArtAlt wrote:

Apple is bringing us more colors!

No, a wider range of colors.

That is, the new iPhones use the P3 gamut rather than being limited by the traditional sRGB. This continues a trend started with last years iMac and iPad Pro. I expect future MacBook Pro's will be P3.

I hope so. I also hope this ends the 'trend' to funnel everything into a tiny gamut color space like sRGB because people believe that's a solution and that 'everything' out there is sRGB.

The press does not seem to have picked up on this transition very much but it might be the most significant part of Apple's announcement, because it means that if they are successful at setting this new standard, longer term we will all be viewing images with a wider array of colors, looking more natural and more vibrant.

I agree and hope the same.

In the shorter term, it has the potential to complicate the lives of photographers.

It doesn't have to be. What photographer can and should ignore simple color management?

Imagine if you deliver your traditional sRGB photographs to a client and they find that the colors are not as vibrant as the P3 images they just shot on their iPhone (not that they will have any idea that they are using a wider color gamut …).

sRGB in no way guarantees a proper color match. That requires color management. And with color managed app's, ANY RGB color space is fair game and works.

I can’t say that I’m losing sleep over this, since a brilliantly crafted image in sRGB will stomp a mediocre image that has a few more colors, but it does present a potential complication to our lives.

Again, important when discussing this to understand that the number of colors is an attribute of encoding what are called device values. Numbers. Might be colors, might not. An Adobe RGB (1998) image in 8-bits per color and sRGB have the same device values (what some call colors but may not be).

http://digitaldog.net/files/ColorNumbersColorGamut.pdf

An image that is inadvertently presented on a device in the wrong color gamut will usually look either oddly flat or oddly over-saturated, like a badly calibrated screen.

Has noting to do with the device per se and everything to do with if it's color managed or not. Non ICC aware app's have no idea what sRGB is. It has no idea about the conditions of the display.

We have been living in a world where it was safe to presume sRGB, so color management in hardware and software was optional from a practical standpoint.

Again, assuming, using sRGB is the best solution when there is no color management but doesn't guarantee a visual match.

sRGB urban legend & myths Part 2

In this 17 minute video, I'll discuss some more sRGB misinformation and cover:

When to use sRGB and what to expect on the web and mobile devices

How sRGB doesn't insure a visual match without color management, how to check

The downsides of an all sRGB workflow

sRGB's color gamut vs. "professional" output devices

The future of sRGB and wide gamut display technology

Photo print labs that demand sRGB for output

High resolution: http://digitaldog.net/files/sRGBMythsPart2.mp4

Low resolution on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyvVUL1gWVs

Apple claims that their systems are fully color managed, if I understand the announcement correctly.

Yes, they have to be and they support (two) color spaces.

A related issue is choice of wide color gamut. The most widely used wide color gamut among photographers is "Adobe RGB", but Apple chose instead to standardize on a wide color gamut used in cinema called "P3". There is overlap among the extra colors offered by Adobe RGB and P3, but substantial differences as well.

They are similar but the P3 color space is aimed at video. Doesn't matter really because again, WITH color management, any RGB color space works as it should; color managed.

noirdesir wrote:

bmoag wrote:

iPhone 7 images will be JPEG sRGB. If they do not have correct color viewed on a non-Apple computer directly or posted to Facebook or whatever, if they do not have correct color when sent to the 95% of the Android using world the iPhone will be blamed. Apple surely knows this.

While I generally agree, I wonder what all that talk about wide-gamut image capture of the iPhone 7 was. Are they limiting it (like they might with raw capture) to third-party apps?

Raw in iOS 10 is coming so you can encode into any color space you wish.

The iPhone's from day one, like all digital cameras, produce a raw file. In iOS 10, Apple will give you that data file instead of converting to a JEPG and throwing the raw away. Just like when you set your DSLR for JPEG alone.

This is a foolish move be Apple. Does photoshop have a P3 working color space?

Manbungo Skumbaum Chimwala wrote:

This is a foolish move be Apple. Does photoshop have a P3 working color space?

What's foolish might be the opinion you've made and your misunderstanding of how Photoshop and all ICC aware applications operate with respect to such profiles.

Yes, my copy of Photoshop has a P3 working space because all one needs is the P3 ICC profile. But that doesn't matter a lick! Any RGB image from the camera will have the DCI-P3 profile embedded within it. You don't need any such profile installed, Photoshop and all other ICC aware app's recognize and use that embedded profile.

Want to convert TO DCI-P3 (and you should ask yourself why you might), then you need an ICC profile installed which is pretty simple to accomplish. Anyone who wants such a profile, easy to find or create within Photoshop itself. I'd be happy to upload a copy.

Foolish move by Apple? No, not based on the facts of how ICC Profiles operate and the fact that there's absolutely nothing you need to do in Photoshop or Lightroom, or any other ICC aware app but simply open the image itself.

digidog wrote:

Manbungo Skumbaum Chimwala wrote:

This is a foolish move be Apple. Does photoshop have a P3 working color space?

What's foolish might be the opinion you've made and your misunderstanding of how Photoshop and all ICC aware applications operate with respect to such profiles.

Yes, my copy of Photoshop has a P3 working space because all one needs is the P3 ICC profile. But that doesn't matter a lick! Any RGB image from the camera will have the DCI-P3 profile embedded within it. You don't need any such profile installed, Photoshop and all other ICC aware app's recognize and use that embedded profile.

Want to convert TO DCI-P3 (and you should ask yourself why you might), then you need an ICC profile installed which is pretty simple to accomplish. Anyone who wants such a profile, easy to find or create within Photoshop itself. I'd be happy to upload a copy.

Foolish move by Apple? No, not based on the facts of how ICC Profiles operate and the fact that there's absolutely nothing you need to do in Photoshop or Lightroom, or any other ICC aware app but simply open the image itself.

Why would anybody want a DCI-P3 profile when editing is best done using Pro-Photo RGB?

Manbungo Skumbaum Chimwala wrote:

digidog wrote:

Manbungo Skumbaum Chimwala wrote:

This is a foolish move be Apple. Does photoshop have a P3 working color space?

What's foolish might be the opinion you've made and your misunderstanding of how Photoshop and all ICC aware applications operate with respect to such profiles.

Yes, my copy of Photoshop has a P3 working space because all one needs is the P3 ICC profile. But that doesn't matter a lick! Any RGB image from the camera will have the DCI-P3 profile embedded within it. You don't need any such profile installed, Photoshop and all other ICC aware app's recognize and use that embedded profile.

Want to convert TO DCI-P3 (and you should ask yourself why you might), then you need an ICC profile installed which is pretty simple to accomplish. Anyone who wants such a profile, easy to find or create within Photoshop itself. I'd be happy to upload a copy.

Foolish move by Apple? No, not based on the facts of how ICC Profiles operate and the fact that there's absolutely nothing you need to do in Photoshop or Lightroom, or any other ICC aware app but simply open the image itself.

Why would anybody want a DCI-P3 profile when editing is best done using Pro-Photo RGB?

Based on your opinion about DCI-3 and now ProPhoto RGB, you need to study up on basic color management.

Editing in ProPhoto RGB is best done in some cases, not all. IF you have raw data, if the capture exceeds say DCI-P3 gamut, a wider gamut space would be 'better'. That's not the case with the iPhone unless and until you get raw. IF it spits out DCI-P3, converting to ProPhoto RGB is pointless, causes both data loss and time lost.

Start your education here:

Everything you thought you wanted to know about color gamut

A pretty exhaustive 37 minute video examining the color gamut of RGB working spaces, images and output color spaces. All plotted in 2D and 3D to illustrate color gamut.

High resolution: http://digitaldog.net/files/ColorGamut.mov

Low Res (YouTube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0bxSD-Xx-Q

digidog wrote:

Manbungo Skumbaum Chimwala wrote:

digidog wrote:

Manbungo Skumbaum Chimwala wrote:

This is a foolish move be Apple. Does photoshop have a P3 working color space?

What's foolish might be the opinion you've made and your misunderstanding of how Photoshop and all ICC aware applications operate with respect to such profiles.

Yes, my copy of Photoshop has a P3 working space because all one needs is the P3 ICC profile. But that doesn't matter a lick! Any RGB image from the camera will have the DCI-P3 profile embedded within it. You don't need any such profile installed, Photoshop and all other ICC aware app's recognize and use that embedded profile.

Want to convert TO DCI-P3 (and you should ask yourself why you might), then you need an ICC profile installed which is pretty simple to accomplish. Anyone who wants such a profile, easy to find or create within Photoshop itself. I'd be happy to upload a copy.

Foolish move by Apple? No, not based on the facts of how ICC Profiles operate and the fact that there's absolutely nothing you need to do in Photoshop or Lightroom, or any other ICC aware app but simply open the image itself.

Why would anybody want a DCI-P3 profile when editing is best done using Pro-Photo RGB?

Based on your opinion about DCI-3 and now ProPhoto RGB, you need to study up on basic color management.

Editing in ProPhoto RGB is best done in some cases, not all. IF you have raw data, if the capture exceeds say DCI-P3 gamut, a wider gamut space would be 'better'. That's not the case with the iPhone unless and until you get raw. IF it spits out DCI-P3, converting to ProPhoto RGB is pointless, causes both data loss and time lost.

Start your education here:

Everything you thought you wanted to know about color gamut

A pretty exhaustive 37 minute video examining the color gamut of RGB working spaces, images and output color spaces. All plotted in 2D and 3D to illustrate color gamut.

High resolution: http://digitaldog.net/files/ColorGamut.mov

Low Res (YouTube): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0bxSD-Xx-Q

Ok. I'll start there. Thanks.

digidog wrote:

noirdesir wrote:

bmoag wrote:

iPhone 7 images will be JPEG sRGB. If they do not have correct color viewed on a non-Apple computer directly or posted to Facebook or whatever, if they do not have correct color when sent to the 95% of the Android using world the iPhone will be blamed. Apple surely knows this.

While I generally agree, I wonder what all that talk about wide-gamut image capture of the iPhone 7 was. Are they limiting it (like they might with raw capture) to third-party apps?

Raw in iOS 10 is coming so you can encode into any color space you wish.

The iPhone's from day one, like all digital cameras, produce a raw file. In iOS 10, Apple will give you that data file instead of converting to a JEPG and throwing the raw away. Just like when you set your DSLR for JPEG alone.

I know. I am just wondering whether users only using default settings and the built-in camera app will ever see the wider gamut that Apple was talking about:

1. I have trouble believing that the new iPhone will by default save images taken by the built-in camera as raw/DNG files (and DNG capture and raw processing capabilities in iOS 10 also work with the iPhone 6s, the iPhone SE, and the 9.7" iPad Pro, so this wider gamut applies to those devices as well). 
2. And if the built-in camera app using default settings is saving only JPEGs, then I wonder whether these JPEGs will have the P3 colour space, and if yes if they will be 8-bit (very little software supports higher than 8-bit JPEGs). 
3. At best, I'd say saving images as DNGs with the built-in camera app is an option in the camera preferences. And like most raw files those will have embedded JPEG files. But will the embedded JPEG use the sRGB or P3 colour space? And what will the built-in Photos app show? This embedded (sRGB) JPEG? If yes, that wider gamut Apple was talking about won't be visible. Or a second JPEG preview that uses P3? Or always render the image directly from the raw file?
   Other non-destructive/parameteric raw DAMs, using Aperture as an example, have both Adobe RGB JPEGs thumbnails and sRGB JPEGs as 'previews'. But then the question is what will third-party apps get when they get a picture from the camera roll: the P3 or the sRGB JPEG. And what will the built-in sharing options (from Messages over Mail over iCloud Photo Sharing) get? If sending an image to another iPhone 7 (or 9.7"  iPad Pro), you'd want them to get the image using the P3 colour space but if you send the image to an Android device, you'd want them to get an sRGB image. 
4. Or will raw capture and wider gamuts be solely the domain of 'more serious' third-party apps? But if so, why then talk so much about the wider gamut if most people might not ever see it (if they don't use those third-party apps)?

In short, I want to know how Apple deals with showing images using the wider P3 gamut of the iPhone 7 display while simultaneous ensuring that images sent to non-colour-managed devices (eg, Android) look ok? And secondarily whether Apple will shoehorn the P3 colour space into an 8-bit JPEG.

ArtAlt wrote:

noirdesir wrote:

1. I have trouble believing that the new iPhone will by default save images taken by the built-in camera as raw/DNG files (and DNG capture and raw processing capabilities in iOS 10 also work with the iPhone 6s, the iPhone SE, and the 9.7" iPad Pro, so this wider gamut applies to those devices as well).

Raises a good question: which capabilities are in the iOS for older devices? E.g. perhaps older devices will get RAW capability?

The iPhone 6s, 6s+, SE and the 9.7" iPad Pro will get raw capture capabilities:

https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/documentation/DeviceInformation/Reference/iOSDeviceCompatibility/Cameras/Cameras.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40013599-CH107-SW1

Raw processing capabilities as part of the OS (ie, not requiring a third-party app) will come to all A8, A9 and A10 CPU devices (iPhone 6, 6+, 6s, 6s+, SE, 7, 7+, iPod touch 6th gen, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 4, iPad Pro 9.7" & 12.9"):

https://developer.apple.com/library/prerelease/content/releasenotes/General/WhatsNewIniOS/Articles/iOS10.html

I doubt though that older devices have wide gamut screens, although it is possible.

Only the 9.7" iPad Pro (and the iPhone 7) have wide gamut screens. Apple wouldn't tout the wide-gamut screen of the 9.7" iPad Pro but not tout it on the 12.9" iPad Pro if the latter also had it. Ditto for iPhones.