Last week we told you about LG’s 5K and 4K UltraFine™ monitors designed for Mac professionals. One of their features is full coverage of the P3 color space. So, what is P3, and what’s in it for you?
Color space refers the range of colors, or gamut, that a camera can see, a printer can print, or a monitor can display. Creative professionals are very familiar with the standard sRGB color space, as they know their work is most apt to be seen in the colors they intended, regardless of the type of monitor used to view it. Many also work with the Adobe RGB color space, as it contains a larger range of colors than sRGB, and represents a lot of the colors that professional DSLRs and printers can reproduce.
The P3 color space, or DCI-P3, is the color range that a digital cinema projector can reproduce, allowing for a much wider contrast and color gamut than traditional film-targeted work. Similar to Adobe RGB, P3 contains a larger range of colors than sRGB. While Adobe RGB leans more toward blues and greens, P3 extends more into the reds and yellows. A device that can display P3 can therefore show more colors than an sRGB device.
Many newer Apple devices have P3 displays, such as newer iMac and MacBook Pro computers, iPad Pro tablets, and some iPhone models. The P3 color gamut is close to Adobe RGB, and as with Adobe RGB, working with P3 shouldn’t be an issue for any project if the user has a bit of experience using color management and color profiles.
Is P3 for TV? Could be. While HDTV’s standard color space uses sRGB, as video moves beyond Full HD (1080p) to 4K (3840 or 4096) and even 8K (7680), we should see a corresponding shift to wide color gamut. In fact, P3 is already the delivery color space specified by Ultra HD Premium – a logo program that defines what technical standards a TV must meet to deliver a ‘premium’ 4K experience: to qualify as an Ultra HD Premium TV, a TV must be able to display more than 90% of the colors defined by the P3 color space.
While P3 is aimed at digital cinema projection, mass market television and video workflows could eventually replace sRGB with P3.
This is good news for graphic designers, art directors, photographers and videographers, as the new LG 5K and 4K UltraFine monitors with P3 are the perfect partners for professional Apple devices, and a future-proof advantage for tomorrow’s wide world of color.