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This questions is related to Why did LR6 soft proofing thought some colors were out of gamut even if they turned out perfect?

Since I found out some of my images are out of gamut of the printing ink+medium I plan to use, I would like to compare

  • the gamut of my monitor with the gamut of my printing ink+medium to understand which colors are critical and the amount of the difference in gamut for those colors, without using try and fail by working on my photos
  • the gamut of two different printing media to choose the one that best suit each photo

Needless to say that I have ICC profiles for monitor and ink+media.

Is there a free software to compare gamuts? Windows in particular, Mac would be welcome too. A graphical comparison would be the best choice, since the gamut is a 3D (at least) color space.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Mac's built-in ColorSync utility shows this. You can pan and rotate around the 3D plot. It is also possible to overlay one 3D plot over another. Is that what you're looking for? \$\endgroup\$
    – Saaru Lindestøkke
    Mar 22, 2016 at 22:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ Yes thanks. I will reboot under OS X if I cannot find a free one for Windows. \$\endgroup\$
    – FarO
    Mar 23, 2016 at 11:27

6 Answers 6

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Imatest has released the latest GamutVision 1.4 as a free, GPL licensed product for Macs and Windows.

http://www.gamutvision.com/docs/smudged_pines.html

It has a large number of features including 3D gamut display of profiles and is especially useful for examining printer profiles. Amongst its many features is the ability to display whether, and how much, images exceed a printer's gamut in various, industry standard, metrics such as common Delta E 1976 and newer ones like Delta E 2000 that are more accurate perceptually.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Just tried GamutVision. Took me a moment to understand the controls. But its excellent for comparing ICC Profiles and color spaces. \$\endgroup\$
    – Grebu
    Dec 12, 2016 at 17:34
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You don't need any software to compare gamut coverages

For what it's worth, you can get the three X-Y chromaticity coordinates from the monitor manufacturer and the three from the ink manufacturer and plot them on a plain X-Y coordinate graph paper. Connect the apex points with lines and compare/look at them directly. The two shapes will overlap. Parts that don't are out of gamut vis-a-vis the other. You can get design specifications for chromaticity coordinates from the manufacturers for any piece or gear or materials from sensors, dyes, inks, and what have you.

If you want, you can plot them on full-colour ICI Chromaticity Plot paper. They look really impressive.

RGB shapes are tri-angular as they have three apexes and CMYK shapes are trapezoidal as there are four apexes. There is one apex for each of the pigment axes.

This is not the same as a spectral emission density curve showing relative responses at different wavelength.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ This image shows a non trapezoidal 3D shape: technologyformedia.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/… Are you sure 4 vertices are enough? \$\endgroup\$
    – FarO
    Jun 10, 2016 at 21:00
  • \$\begingroup\$ @OlafM Cool graph. Is that a "CIE chromaticity diagram"? Is that X-Y coordinate graph paper? Try a search for the term in quotes. I may be wrong; but, I'm never in doubt. \$\endgroup\$
    – Stan
    Jun 10, 2016 at 21:10
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viewgam from ArgyllCMS will generate an HTML page with rotatable 3D view.

http://www.argyllcms.com/doc/viewgam.html

Convert one or more gamuts into a X3DOM 3D visualization file. This allows visual comparison of several gamut surfaces. Also allows creating the intersection (overlap) between two gamuts. This is useful in measuring and visualizing the coverage of one gamut of another.

However, it only supports ICC v2, not v4. In particular, it doesn't handle chromatic adaptation.

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I use a program called PerfX. It seems a little hard to find a download right now, but you can get it at https://web.archive.org/web/20080511211242/http://www.tglc.com/english/PerfX/3D_Gamut_Viewer.html

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Mac has a free gamut preview tool and you can compare two gamuts as well. It is part of the system ColorSync utility. It shows the gamut in 3D. I think I've seen a web based viewer once, not sure if it still exists. Argyll CMS package can show gamuts, not sure if it can overlap two in one plot.

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There's ColorThink from chromix

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    \$\begingroup\$ ColorThink isn't free. It has a limited demo: "Without a serial number ColorThink will run for an unlimited time in a limited demonstration mode that allows full navigation of the modules but will restrict opening and graphing to the included demo (SWOP, sRGB) profiles." \$\endgroup\$
    – scottbb ♦
    Mar 22, 2016 at 16:06

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