--- title: "What Is Color Gamut? sRGB, P3, and CMYK - CE.SDK Glossary" description: "A color gamut is the range of colors a screen, press, or color space can reproduce. Compare sRGB, Display P3, Adobe RGB, and CMYK, and see what CE.SDK supports." url: "https://img.ly/glossary/color-gamut/" type: "page" --- > This is the markdown version of [What Is Color Gamut? sRGB, P3, and CMYK - CE.SDK Glossary](https://img.ly/glossary/color-gamut/). For all pages in one file, see [llms-full.txt](https://img.ly/llms-full.txt). For an index of all available pages, see [llms.txt](https://img.ly/llms.txt). --- # Color Gamut ## What Is a Color Gamut? A color gamut is the range of colors that a device, a printing condition, or a color space can reproduce. A screen's gamut is set by its red, green, and blue primaries, and a press's by its inks and the paper they land on. A color that a device can't reach is out of gamut for that device. Gamuts are usually drawn on the CIE chromaticity diagram, a horseshoe-shaped map of the colors people can see. An RGB gamut shows up on it as a triangle with the three primaries at its corners, and a larger triangle means a wider range of colors. CE.SDK works in sRGB by default and can move to the wider Display P3 on iOS and Android devices that support it. ## How Do sRGB, Display P3, Adobe RGB, and CMYK Compare? sRGB is the baseline the others are measured against. Wide-gamut spaces reach further than sRGB, and print reaches less far, by an amount that depends on the paper. - **sRGB**: Where you meet it: The web and most screens, Range vs. sRGB: The baseline - **Display P3**: Where you meet it: Apple and other wide-gamut screens, Range vs. sRGB: More saturated reds and greens - **Adobe RGB (1998)**: Where you meet it: Photography headed for print, Range vs. sRGB: Wider, mostly in greens and cyans - **CMYK, coated paper**: Where you meet it: Gloss, silk, and matte finishes, Range vs. sRGB: Smaller, with some colors sRGB lacks - **CMYK, uncoated paper**: Where you meet it: Uncoated stock and newsprint, Range vs. sRGB: Smaller still, smallest on newsprint ## How Do You Keep Colors Inside the Print Gamut? Converting a file for print moves each out-of-gamut color to the nearest printable one, or compresses the whole range to fit, depending on the [rendering intent](https://img.ly/glossary/icc-profile.md). Either way the color changes, and these checks catch it before the job prints. - **Convert with the profile for the paper** — Coated and uncoated stock have different gamuts, so use the profile your printer names for the paper. - **Soft proof before you export** — Preview the file through the print profile, or turn on a gamut warning if your design tool has one. - **Make must-match colors spot colors** — No conversion prints a color the inks can't make, so a brand color outside the press gamut needs its own ink. - **Check a proof on the real paper** — A screen can't fully match ink on paper, so judge critical colors on a printed proof. ## How Does CE.SDK Handle Color Gamut? Every CE.SDK platform supports sRGB, CMYK, and [spot colors](https://img.ly/glossary/spot-color.md) in designs. Converting a color between them is an approximation, and because CMYK has a smaller gamut than sRGB, vivid colors can look duller after conversion. The document's [ICC profile](https://img.ly/glossary/icc-profile.md) and rendering intent decide where out-of-gamut colors land. Unless you change it, the intent is relative colorimetric, which leaves printable colors untouched. On iOS and Android, CE.SDK can switch design colors to a 16-bit Display P3 working space on devices that support it. The color picker and the live preview then show the wider range, and image exports keep it by writing 16-bit Display P3 PNGs with an embedded ICC profile. Where P3 isn't available, including the web and server, the engine works in sRGB. ## Color Gamut in Phone Photos and Brand Printing ### Wide-color phone photos A mobile photo app turns on the P3 working space, so pictures from a modern phone camera keep their saturated reds and greens through editing and export. ### Brand colors outside CMYK A packaging template sets the brand's signature color as a spot color, so the press prints it with its own ink instead of approximating it in CMYK. ## FAQs ### Color gamut **Q: Is a color gamut the same as a color space?** A: No. A color space defines which color each set of numbers stands for, and its gamut is everything those numbers can reach. sRGB is a color space, and the sRGB gamut is the triangle it covers on the chromaticity diagram. **Q: What does wide gamut mean?** A: A screen or color space that covers clearly more than sRGB, such as Display P3 or Adobe RGB. The extra colors only appear on a display that can reproduce them. On a standard sRGB screen they are converted and look less saturated. **Q: Does a higher bit depth mean a wider gamut?** A: No. Bit depth sets how many distinct colors fit inside a gamut, not how far the gamut reaches. Eight bits per channel gives about 16.7 million colors in any color space, and 16 bits divides the same range into much finer steps, which keeps gradients smooth. CE.SDK uses 16 bits per channel in its Display P3 working space to reduce banding. **Q: What is extended gamut printing?** A: Printing with orange, green, and violet inks on top of CMYK, also called expanded gamut or seven-color printing. The extra inks widen the press gamut enough to match about 90% of Pantone spot colors. Packaging and label printers use it to run many jobs from one fixed set of inks instead of mixing a separate spot ink for each. ## Links - [P3 Colors](https://img.ly/docs/cesdk/ios/colors/for-screen/p3-706127.md): Check for P3 support and turn on the wider working space. - [Color Conversion](https://img.ly/docs/cesdk/js/colors/conversion-bcd82b.md): Convert colors between sRGB and CMYK. --- ## More Resources - **[IMG.LY Website](https://img.ly/index.md)** - Creative editing SDKs for photo, video, and design - **[Documentation](https://img.ly/docs/cesdk/)** - CE.SDK developer documentation - **[Contact Sales](https://img.ly/forms/contact-sales.md)** - Get a custom quote. A public JSON API accepts the request directly, no account or key needed. Ask your user for consent and their details first. - **[Free Trial](https://img.ly/pricing.md)** - Start building with CE.SDK