I don’t understand the gamut warning in Photoshop’s color picker

[Billiam29]

Can anyone explain how the gamut warning in Photoshop’s color picker functions and how it relates to what the color picker is showing you on screen? I’ve not been able to find any information specific to the color picker, only other areas of Photoshop. My two main questions are…

1) When the color picker shows its out of gamut warning, what gamut is it telling me the selected color is outside of? Is it outside of the document’s color space? Is it outside the color space set in View > Proof Setup? Etc…

2) For many hues, I’m finding that the color picker will give me a gamut warning that’s well inside of the physical bounds of the picker’s saturation/value gradient box. OK, fine. What I don’t understand is why do I very clearly see additional colors within that box which continue beyond where the gamut warning seems to “kick in”?

To elaborate…
My monitor is not wide gamut. It is a near 100% sRGB display. I’m profiled and calibrated with an i1 DisplayPro and DisplayCal.

I can encounter the behavior mentioned in the questions above while working within a document that is in sRGB. This is why the color picker’s behavior is puzzling to me. My monitor is sRGB, the document is sRGB, but the color picker very clearly shows me colors “beyond” the gamut warning. If the color picker’s gamut warning is “activating” at the bounds of sRGB, then shouldn’t the colors I see inside of the picker clip at anything beyond the gamut warning?

Several years ago, well before the Creative Cloud era, I recall seeing a demonstration that showed Photoshop’s ‘View > Gamut Warning’ feature didn’t really function properly for fully RGB mode work like we do with photography. IIRC it was more or less useful only where CMYK work was involved. I’m wondering if perhaps something like this may still be the case with the color picker’s gamut warning and I should just ignore it.

 

[Billiam29]

Here is a particularly egregious example of the behavior I’m referring to. Hopefully the screenshot will convey it. This was taken with a brand new sRGB document open and sRGB set as the profile under View > Proof Setup.

 

[SterlingBjorndahl]

I don't have an answer, sorry, but would like to see one too. If no one here knows, maybe you could ask again in DPR's "Photographic Science and Technology " forum?

Regards,
Sterling
--
Lens Grit

 

[Billiam29]

FWIW I went back and skimmed through a couple of digital art oriented videos on Adobe’s Creative Cloud YouTube channel. On multiple occasions, the presenter selected and used colors in the picker which had the picker’s gamut warning active. It seemed like he was ignoring it.

 

[Regor250]

I am venturing a guess here, but the way I interpret this is as follow: you are selecting a color value that is outside the SRGB domain (that of your image and monitor). Hence the color you see is an interpolation/approximation of the true color you selected, therefore the application is telling you that this color may not look exactly like what you are seeing if your image were to be saved (and seen / printed) in a wider color gamut format; that is all. I am also guessing that your application working color domain is set to a wider gamut, hence allowing you to select colors that fall outside the gamut of your image. If it were me, I'd look at my application settings and limit the working color domain to match that of my monitor if that is an option.

--
Roger

 

[Billiam29]

This is certainly a reasonable hypothesis, however my working space is set to sRGB in Photoshop's color settings and has been ever since started using my current sRGB gamut monitor.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

That shows you what colors can't be printed in CMYK, according to the current CMYK profile you have set in Color Settings.

You toggle the out-of-CMYK-gamut colors in the color picker with Command-Shift-Y, where they will turn gray.

 

[Billiam29]

That shows you what colors can't be printed in CMYK, according to the current CMYK profile you have set in Color Settings.

Thank you!

So unless I’m missing something, it sounds like I can completely ignore this warning. At least where my own use case is concerned. I’m certainly not preparing anything for four color press work or creating any content intended for such.

 

[Mark S Abeln]

That shows you what colors can't be printed in CMYK, according to the current CMYK profile you have set in Color Settings.

Thank you!

So unless I’m missing something, it sounds like I can completely ignore this warning. At least where my own use case is concerned. I’m certainly not preparing anything for four color press work or creating any content intended for such.

Yes, you can ignore it. I only know it because I used to do a lot of CMYK work.

An interesting fact is that the CMYK colors typically exceed sRGB in a few places, and also exceed Adobe RGB, which is why I use ProPhoto when editing for print. Likewise the same is found with higher end inkjet printers. It's a lot of work fine-tuning an image for a particular printer, but is worth it in many cases.

 

[graybalanced]

That shows you what colors can't be printed in CMYK, according to the current CMYK profile you have set in Color Settings.

You toggle the out-of-CMYK-gamut colors in the color picker with Command-Shift-Y, where they will turn gray.

I do think that description is slightly off. The description given by the original poster in the first post seems more accurate: It is not just “the CMYK profile in Color Settings.” It is specifically, as the OP said, the profile selected in View/Proof Setup/Custom (Customize Proof Conditions). The Gamut Warning and Proof Colors command are both tied to the profile in that dialog box, because if you have either or both active and you change the profile in Custom, the soft proof and the gamut warning update in front of you to match the new profile selection. That is why those three commands are together on the View menu.

And it does not have to be CMYK. You can choose a non-CMYK (eg. RGB) profile in Customize Proof Condition and the proof and gamut warning will map against that.

I think the only reason it is generally observed that Gamut Warning maps against the CMYK in Color Settings is that is the default. But in reality, it at least acts like it will proof against any profile selectable in Customize Proof Condition.

So unless I’m missing something, it sounds like I can completely ignore this warning. At least where my own use case is concerned. I’m certainly not preparing anything for four color press work or creating any content intended for such.

Because the selectable profile is not limited to CMYK, Proof Colors and Gamut Warning might be of more interest to you than you think. I use them all the time to soft-proof for printing on my own home photo printer. It may not be CMYK exactly, but its nine inks do include CMYK, and using Proof Colors and Gamut Warning to soft-proof for home/pro inkjet printing is commonly accepted.

If there is a reason to ignore Gamut Warning, the real reason is its limited usefulness. Just because a color is out of gamut does not mean it is wrong. The real purpose of Gamut Warning is to make you inspect the area to see if a color edit needs to be made. If the color looks OK despite being out of gamut, no change needs to be made. Proof Colors is more useful because you get a preview of how it looks in the target gamut.

The color picker thing though, I’m not sure what is going on there…

 

[FredH999]

You are in sRGB mode. "out of gamut" is meaningful only to CMYK color system if you were doing web-offset color plates using pantone inks.

With sRGB mode ALL colors are IN gamut. If you happen to use such an "out of gamut" color the photo printer will default to the nearest "in gamut" color. Therefore, no problem would exist.