List of color spaces and their uses
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This is a list of color spaces, grouped by the color model that is used for part of their specification.


Models

Color models can be based on physics or human perception. Physical descriptions of color can be additive (describes mixing of light, RGB) or subtractive (describes mixing of pigment or removal of light, CMYK). Descriptions based on human perception are based on some experimental results on humans. Some models and their variants are employed in parts of the color spaces listed below.


Human perception

Instead of being based on color mixture, they are based on human experience or
phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
.


CIE 1931 XYZ

CIE 1931 XYZ was the first attempt to produce a color space based on measurements of human color perception and the basis for almost all other color spaces.


CIEUVW

Measurements over a larger field of view than the "CIE 1931 XYZ" color space which produces slightly different results.


Uniform color spaces

Uniform color space A color appearance model (CAM) is a mathematical model that seeks to describe the perceptual aspects of human color vision, i.e. viewing conditions under which the appearance of a color does not tally with the corresponding physical measurement o ...
s (UCSs) are built such that the same geometrical distance anywhere in the color space reflects the same amount of perceived
color difference In color science, color difference or color distance is the separation between two colors. This metric allows quantified examination of a notion that formerly could only be described with adjectives. Quantification of these properties is of great ...
. There have been many attempts at building such a color space. As human vision has three components, the space is necessarily 3D; it is generally assigned such that one is the
lightness Lightness is a visual perception of the luminance (L) of an object. It is often judged relative to a similarly lit object. In colorimetry and color appearance models, lightness is a prediction of how an illuminated color will appear to a stan ...
and the other two the chroma. A uniform color space is useful for a wide range of tasks. It can be used to calculate color difference or to pick colors in a visually harmonious way, for example.


CIELUV

A modification of "CIE 1931 XYZ" to display color differences more conveniently. The CIELUV space is useful for additive mixtures of lights, due to its linear addition properties (human hue perception does not respect light addition, however).Keith McLaren; "Dyes, General Survey" in: ''Ullmann's Encyclopedia of Industrial Chemistry''; Wiley-VCH; 15 June 2000.


CIELAB

CIELAB produces a color space that is more perceptually linear than other color spaces. Perceptually linear means that a change of the same amount in a color value should produce a change of about the same visual importance. CIELAB has almost entirely replaced an alternative related Lab color space called “
Hunter Lab The CIELAB color space, also referred to as ''L*a*b*'' , is a color space defined by the International Commission on Illumination (abbreviated CIE) in 1976. (Referring to CIELAB as "Lab" without asterisks should be avoided to prevent confusion ...
”. This space is commonly used for surface colors, but not for mixtures of (transmitted) light.


HSLuv

HSLuv preserves the lightness and hue components of CIELUV LCh and stretches its chroma so that every color has the same range, defined as a percentage.


Newer models

CIELAB and CIELUV are soon recognized to be insufficient to explain the entire range of color phenomena. A range of increasingly complex
color appearance model A color appearance model (CAM) is a mathematical model that seeks to describe the perceptual aspects of human color vision, i.e. viewing conditions under which the appearance of a color does not tally with the corresponding physical measurement of ...
s appeared to model the behavior of human vision under different viewing conditions, but ended up less used due to the added inputs required and overall algorithmic complexity. In addition, the performance of the 1976 color spaces under different viewing conditions is not their only problem. Even under the default reference viewing condition, CIELAB is known to poorly work in blue hues. For a standard dynamic range and a fixed viewing condition, it turns out that CIELAB's simple structure suffices as long as better coefficients are used. The IPT color space of 1998 uses new data about hue to greatly improve on CIELAB's non-constant lines of hue, although it still leaves much to be desired in its prediction of colorfulness and lightness. OKLab uses IPT data for hue and a modern CAM (CAM16) to generate lightness and colorfulness data, resulting in an improved fit over human perception under the same structure.


RGB primaries

RGB (red, green, blue) describes the chromaticity component of a given color, when excluding luminance. RGB itself is not a color space, it is a color model. There are many different color spaces that employ this color model to describe their chromaticities because the R/G/B chromaticities are one facet for reproducing color in CRT & LED displays.


sRGB

The sRGB color space (standard red, green, blue) was created jointly by
Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
and Microsoft for use on the Internet. It has been endorsed by the
W3C The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working to ...
, Exif, Intel, Pantone, Corel, and many other industry players. It is also well accepted by open-source software such as the
GIMP GIMP ( ; GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized task ...
, and is used in proprietary and open graphics file formats such as SVG. sRGB is intended as a common color space for the creation of images for viewing on the Internet and World Wide Web (WWW). The resultant color space closely approximates a Gamma correction of 2.2, the average response of a CRT display to linear voltage levels.


Adobe RGB

The Adobe RGB color space was developed by
Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...
in 1998. It was designed to encompass most of the colors achievable on CMYK color printers, but by using RGB primary chromaticities on a device such as the computer display. The Adobe RGB color space encompasses roughly 50% of the visible colors specified by the
Lab color space The CIELAB color space, also referred to as ''L*a*b*'' , is a color space defined by the International Commission on Illumination (abbreviated CIE) in 1976. (Referring to CIELAB as "Lab" without asterisks should be avoided to prevent confusion ...
, improving upon the gamut of the sRGB color space primarily in cyan-greens.


Adobe Wide Gamut RGB

The Adobe Wide Gamut RGB color space was developed by
Adobe Systems Adobe Inc. ( ), originally called Adobe Systems Incorporated, is an American multinational computer software company incorporated in Delaware and headquartered in San Jose, California. It has historically specialized in software for the crea ...
as an alternative to the standard sRGB color space. It is able to store a wider range of color values than sRGB. The Wide Gamut color space is an expanded version of the Adobe RGB color space, developed in 1998. As a comparison, the Adobe Wide Gamut RGB color space encompasses 77.6% of the visible colors specified by the
Lab color space The CIELAB color space, also referred to as ''L*a*b*'' , is a color space defined by the International Commission on Illumination (abbreviated CIE) in 1976. (Referring to CIELAB as "Lab" without asterisks should be avoided to prevent confusion ...
, whilst the standard Adobe RGB color space covers just 50.6%. One of the downsides to this color space is that approximately 8% of the colors representable are
imaginary color Impossible colors are colors that do not appear in ordinary visual functioning. Different color theories suggest different hypothetical colors that humans are incapable of perceiving for one reason or another, and fictional colors are rou ...
s that do not exist and are not representable in any medium. This means that potential color accuracy is wasted by reserving these unnecessary colors.


Rec. 2100

Rec. 2100 ITU-R Recommendation BT.2100, more commonly known by the abbreviations Rec. 2100 or BT.2100, introduced high-dynamic-range television (HDR-TV) by recommending the use of the perceptual quantizer (PQ) or hybrid log–gamma (HLG) transfer func ...
is a color space standardized by
ITU The International Telecommunication Union is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for many matters related to information and communication technologies. It was established on 17 May 1865 as the International Telegraph Unio ...
and used for HDR-TV. It has a peak
luminance Luminance is a photometric measure of the luminous intensity per unit area of light travelling in a given direction. It describes the amount of light that passes through, is emitted from, or is reflected from a particular area, and falls withi ...
of at least 1,000 cd/m2 (higher than the 100 cd/m2 limit of SDR and color spaces such as
Rec. 709 Rec. 709, also known as Rec.709, BT.709, and ITU 709, is a standard developed by ITU-R for image encoding and signal characteristics of high-definition television. The most recent version is BT.709-6 released in 2015. BT.709-6 defines the P ...
and
Rec. 2020 ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020, more commonly known by the abbreviations Rec. 2020 or BT.2020, defines various aspects of ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV) with standard dynamic range (SDR) and wide color gamut (WCG), including picture ...
). It uses a non-
gamma Gamma (uppercase , lowercase ; ''gámma'') is the third letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals it has a value of 3. In Ancient Greek, the letter gamma represented a voiced velar stop . In Modern Greek, this letter re ...
transfer function ( PQ or HLG) and system colorimetry ( chromaticity of color primaries and white point) identical to
Rec. 2020 ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020, more commonly known by the abbreviations Rec. 2020 or BT.2020, defines various aspects of ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV) with standard dynamic range (SDR) and wide color gamut (WCG), including picture ...
system colorimetry.


Others with RGB primaries

* ProPhoto RGB color space *
scRGB scRGB is a wide color gamut RGB color space created by Microsoft and HP that uses the same color primaries and white/black points as the sRGB color space but allows coordinates below zero and greater than one. The full range is −0.5 through ...
* DCI-P3, used primarily for digital movie projection *SMPTE 240M / SMPTE "C", used in NTSC and MUSE analog television systems *
Rec. 601 ITU-R Recommendation BT.601, more commonly known by the abbreviations Rec. 601 or BT.601 (or its former name CCIR 601) is a standard originally issued in 1982 by the CCIR (an organization, which has since been renamed as the Internatio ...
, used for SDTV *
Rec. 709 Rec. 709, also known as Rec.709, BT.709, and ITU 709, is a standard developed by ITU-R for image encoding and signal characteristics of high-definition television. The most recent version is BT.709-6 released in 2015. BT.709-6 defines the P ...
, used for HDTV *
Rec. 2020 ITU-R Recommendation BT.2020, more commonly known by the abbreviations Rec. 2020 or BT.2020, defines various aspects of ultra-high-definition television (UHDTV) with standard dynamic range (SDR) and wide color gamut (WCG), including picture ...
, used for UHDTV *
Academy Color Encoding System The Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) is a color image encoding system created under the auspices of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. ACES allows for a fully encompassing color accurate workflow, with "seamless interchange of ...
(ACES)


YCbCr and YUV

The analogue YUV and digital YCbCr refer to a variety of linear methods to try to separate lightness from chroma signals in an RGB input using linear combination. As the input RGB values are gamma-corrected, such a separation does not truly produce lightness and two chroma signals, but a "luma" signal and two " chrominance" signals instead. YUV is originally used in video: as human eyes have less resolution in its color perception, it is more economic to put more of the bandwidth in encoding Luma. The same principle is used in YCC. In YCC, separating also has the added benefit of removing most of the correlation between the input channels, therefore providing better compression.
YCoCg The YCoCg color model, also known as the YCgCo color model, is the color space formed from a simple transformation of an associated RGB color space into a ''luma'' value (denoted as Y) and two '' chroma'' values called ''chrominance green'' (Cg) and ...
is a version of YCbCr with extremely simple coefficients. It results in faster computation, lossless conversion, and apparently better
decorrelation Decorrelation is a general term for any process that is used to reduce autocorrelation within a signal, or cross-correlation within a set of signals, while preserving other aspects of the signal. A frequently used method of decorrelation is the u ...
.
ICtCp ''ICTCP'', ''ICtCp'', or ''ITP'' is a color representation format specified in the Rec. ITU-R BT.2100 standard that is used as a part of the color image pipeline in video and digital photography systems for high dynamic range (HDR) and wide colo ...
is used similarly to YCC in video compression, but is more appropriately described as a high dynamic range uniform color space. Other similar color spaces: * YPbPr * YDbDr *
YIQ YIQ is the color space used by the analog NTSC color TV system, employed mainly in North and Central America, and Japan. ''I'' stands for ''in-phase'', while ''Q'' stands for ''quadrature'', referring to the components used in quadrature amplitud ...
* xvYCC *
sYCC sRGB is a standard RGB (red, green, blue) color space that HP and Microsoft created cooperatively in 1996 to use on monitors, printers, and the World Wide Web. It was subsequently standardized by the International Electrotechnical Commission ( ...


Cylindrical transformations

Cylindrical transformations seek to turn a color model into three components: the lightness, the
colorfulness Colorfulness, chroma and saturation are attributes of perceived color relating to chromatic intensity. As defined formally by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) they respectively describe three different aspects of chromatic ...
, and the hue.


HSV and HSL

HSV and HSL are transformations of Cartesian RGB primaries (usually
sRGB sRGB is a standard RGB (red, green, blue) color space that HP and Microsoft created cooperatively in 1996 to use on monitors, printers, and the World Wide Web. It was subsequently standardized by the International Electrotechnical Commission ( ...
), and their components and colorimetry are relative to the colorspace from which they are derived. HSV (hue, saturation, value), also known as HSB (hue, saturation, brightness), is often used by artists because it is often more natural to think about a color in terms of hue and saturation than in terms of additive or subtractive color components. HSL (hue, saturation, lightness or luminance), also known as HSI (hue, saturation, intensity) or HSD (hue, saturation, darkness), is quite similar to HSV, with "lightness" replacing "brightness". The difference is that a perfectly ''light'' color in HSL is pure white; but a perfectly ''bright'' color in HSV is analogous to shining a white light on a colored object. I.e. shining a bright white light on a red object causes the object to still appear red, just brighter and more intense. Shining a dim light on a red object causes the object to appear darker and less bright. The issue with both HSV and HSL is that these approaches do not effectively separate colour into their three value components according to human perception of color. This can be seen when the saturation settings are altered — it is quite easy to notice the difference in perceptual lightness despite the "V" or "L" setting being fixed.


LCh: uniform color space

For uniform color spaces that already have a lightness component, the transformation only involves rearranging the two ''chroma'' values into colorfulness (C) and hue (h). CIELChab and CIELChuv are cylindrical transformations of the
CIELAB The CIELAB color space, also referred to as ''L*a*b*'' , is a color space defined by the International Commission on Illumination (abbreviated CIE) in 1976. (Referring to CIELAB as "Lab" without asterisks should be avoided to prevent confusion ...
and
CIELUV In colorimetry, the CIE 1976 ''L''*, ''u''*, ''v''* color space, commonly known by its abbreviation CIELUV, is a color space adopted by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) in 1976, as a simple-to-compute transformation of the 1931 CI ...
color spaces, respectively. The cylindrical coordinates C* (chroma, relative saturation) and h° (hue angle, angle of the hue in the color wheel) are specified. The CIELAB and CIELUV coordinate L* (lightness) remains unchanged. The newer UCS systems can also be applied to a similar transform. In fact, both IPT and OKLab/OKLCH are designed for hue uniformity, a feature that is only explicitly shown after a cylindrical transformation.


Subtractive


and CMY

CMYK is used in the printing process, because it describes what kinds of
ink Ink is a gel, sol, or solution that contains at least one colorant, such as a dye or pigment, and is used to color a surface to produce an image, text, or design. Ink is used for drawing or writing with a pen, brush, reed pen, or quill. Thi ...
s are needed to be applied so the light reflected from the substrate and through the inks produces a given color. One starts with a white substrate (canvas, page, etc.), and uses ink to subtract color from white to create an image. CMYK stores ink values for cyan, magenta, yellow and black. There are many CMYK colorspaces for different sets of inks, substrates, and press characteristics (which change the dot gain or transfer function for each ink and thus change the appearance).


Commercial color spaces

* Munsell color system – early perceptually-uniform color space * Natural Color System (NCS) – perceptual * Pantone Matching System (PMS) – standardized color reproduction (and color list) * RAL – standardized color matching (and color list) * Aerospace Material Specification - Standard 595A (Supersedes (US) Federal Standard 595C) * (US) Federal Standard 595C * British Standard Colour (BS) * HKS – standardized color reproduction (and color list)


Special-purpose color spaces

* The rg chromaticity space is used in
computer vision Computer vision is an interdisciplinary scientific field that deals with how computers can gain high-level understanding from digital images or videos. From the perspective of engineering, it seeks to understand and automate tasks that the hum ...
applications, and shows the color of light (red, yellow, green, etc.), but not its intensity (dark, bright). * LMS color space (long, medium, short), a perceptual color space based on the response functions of the cones in the retina of the eye. It is mostly used in psychophysical research. * TSL color space is used in face and skin detection.


Obsolete color spaces

Early color spaces had two components. They largely ignored blue light because the added complexity of a three-component process provided only a marginal increase in fidelity when compared to the jump from monochrome to two-component color. * RG for early Technicolor film * RGK for early color printing


References


External links


Precise Color Communication
Konica Minolta Sensing {{DEFAULTSORT:List Of Color Spaces And Their Uses * Color
color spaces A color space is a specific organization of colors. In combination with color profiling supported by various physical devices, it supports reproducible representations of colorwhether such representation entails an analog or a digital represent ...