RGB color space

From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.

An RGB color space is any additive color space based on the RGB color model.

RGB is shorthand for Red, Green, Blue.

RGB is a convenient color model for computer graphics because the human visual system works in a way that is similar - though not quite identical - to an RGB color space. The most commonly used RGB color spaces are sRGB and Adobe RGB, which has a significantly larger gamut than sRGB. Adobe has recently developed another color space called Adobe Wide Gamut RGB, which is even larger, in detriment of gamut density.

As of 2004, sRGB is by far the most commonly used RGB color space, particularly in consumer grade digital cameras, because it is considered adequate for most consumer applications, and its design simplifies previewing on the typical computer display. Adobe RGB is also being built into more medium-range digital cameras, and is favored by many professional graphic artists.

RGB spaces are generally specified by defining three primary colors and a white point. In the table below the three primary colors and white points for various RGB spaces are given. The primary colors are specified in terms of their CIE chromaticity coordinates (x,y).

Some RGB color space parameters (from Susstrunk, Buckley and Swen 2005)

Color Space	Gamut	White Point	Primaries
			xR	yR	xG	yG	xB	yB
ISO RGB	Limited	floating	floating
Extended ISO RGB	Unlimited (signed)	floating	floating
sRGB	CRT	D65	0.64	0.33	0.30	0.60	0.15	0.06
ROMM RGB	Wide	D50	0.7347	0.2653	0.1596	0.8404	0.0366	0.0001
Adobe RGB 98	CRT	D65	0.64	0.34	0.21	0.71	0.15	0.06
Apple RGB	CRT	D65	0.625	0.34	0.28	0.595	0.155	0.070
NTSC RGB	CRT	Ill. C	0.67	0.33	0.21	0.71	0.14	0.08
EBU RGB (CCIR 601)	CRT	D65	0.64	0.33	0.29	0.60	0.15	0.06
ITU-R BT.709	CRT	D65	0.64	0.33	0.30	0.60	0.15	0.06
CIE RGB (1931)	Wide	E	0.7347	0.2653	0.2738	0.7174	0.1666	0.0089

See also

• HSV color space
• HLS color space

External links

• Susstrunk, Buckley and Swen, "Standard RGB Color Spaces" (PDF) (http://ivrgwww.epfl.ch/publications/sbs99.pdf)
• sRGB vs Adobe RGB: The Truth (http://www.shootsmarter.com/infocenter/wc025.html) - a summary of the practical aspects of using the two spaces
• A paper comparing RGB color spaces (http://lcavwww.epfl.ch/~sabines/127.pdf) - an Adobe PDF document
• RGB Working Space Information (http://www.brucelindbloom.com/index.html?WorkingSpaceInfo.html)

Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) RGB_color_space (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RGB_color_space) version history (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=RGB_color_space&action=history) GNU Free Documentation Lizenz (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_the_GNU_Free_Documentation_License) CC-by-sa (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/)

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