[Gimp-developer] GIMP and Adobe RGB (1998)

[Elle Stone <ellestone ninedegreesbelow com>]

The other day there was an IRC discussion of the possibility of GIMP 
supporting RGB color spaces other than unbounded mode sRGB.

I was surprised to see in the transcript a statement that GIMP shouldn't 
support Adobe RGB (1998).

The rejection of Adobe RGB (1998) seemed to be based on the premise that 
the accidental nature of the creation of the Adobe RGB (1998) color 
space means that the Adobe RGB (1998) color space is somehow not useful 
for image editing.

Back in 1998 Adobe intended to create an entirely different color space 
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobergb). Instead Adobe accidentally 
released a color space with the same red and blue chromaticities as 
sRGB, but with a more saturated green chromaticity.

Adobe tried to fix what they saw as their mistake. But photographers 
said, "No, we like the extra color gamut. Adobe RGB (1998) holds more of 
the printable greens, yellows and cyans than sRGB. We need to keep it."

sRGB is based on the display characteristics of consumer grade monitors 
from the late 1990s. Consequently the sRGB color gamut is far too small 
to hold all printable colors. So Adobe RGB (1998) was hailed as superior 
to sRGB, particularly when the task at hand was editing  printable 
colors that exceed the very small sRGB color space.

The Adobe RGB (1998) color gamut is also too small to hold all printable 
colors. But for many editing tasks Adobe RGB (1998) was and still 
remains an improvement over sRGB.

Adobe RGB (1998) is almost certainly the second most widely used RGB 
color space, right behind sRGB.

Many commercial print shops only accept sRGB images. Of the shops that 
do accept images in another RGB color space, that color space is often 
Adobe RGB (1998).

Most digital cameras only save jpegs in the sRGB color space. Of the 
ones that do allow the saving of jpegs in another RGB color space, that 
color space is Adobe RGB (1998).

Adobe RGB (1998) is important for:

* People preparing images for printing

* People who save Adobe RGB (1998) camera jpegs

* People who want or need a small gamut color space that is nonetheless 
larger than the very small sRGB.


A summary rejection of Adobe RGB (1998) ignores the needs and accustomed 
workflows of the many, many photographers who work in the Adobe RGB 
(1998) color space.


Elle