Color gamut
Also known as: color range, gamut, wide color gamut, WCG
Color gamut is the range of colors a device, format, or color space can capture, store, or display. A wider gamut covers more saturated and vivid colors; a narrower one clips them to its nearest available shades.
- The range of colors a device or format can reproduce
- sRGB is narrower; DCI-P3 is a wider gamut
- Out-of-gamut colors get clipped to the nearest shade
What a gamut covers
Every screen, camera, and color space can only reproduce a subset of the colors the eye can see. That subset is its gamut. Common reference gamuts include sRGB, the long-standing web and consumer standard, and DCI-P3, a wider gamut used for modern displays and HDR.
When an image with a wide gamut is shown on a narrow-gamut screen, colors outside the screen's range are mapped to the nearest ones it can produce, so vivid reds and greens look duller. Matching the gamut between content and display keeps colors accurate.
Gamut, color space, and space
Gamut describes the *range* of colors; a color space pairs that range with rules for how values map to those colors. A photo tags which space it uses so other devices interpret its colors correctly.
A wider gamut does not by itself make files much larger — that is driven by resolution and bit depth — but wide-gamut, high-bit-depth content together does increase size.