What is Adobe RGB Colour Space?

In the realm of photography, colour accuracy on a monitor is crucial for replicating the real-life colours captured in images while viewing or editing them. In order to achieve this accurate replication, professional monitors have various colour gamut’s, or colour spaces, that they can produce or record. A commonly used colour space is Adobe RGB, developed by Adobe Inc. in 1998. But what exactly is the Adobe RGB Colour Space and why is an Adobe RGB monitor important for photographers? In this article we’ll answer these questions and provide some guidance for finding the right photography monitor for you. 

Professional photography monitors will often list the percentage of each colour space they can produce. The higher a percentage of colour space a monitor can represent, the more accurate the images will be. Most professional photography monitors can cover up to 99% of the Adobe RGB colour space as it is one of the commonly used colour spaces. Adobe created this colour space so that consumers could use it in Photoshop with the new colour management features they were releasing. Though there were some issues upon its initial release with the accurate representation of reds, it was standardised by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and is used in HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface).

Adobe RGB utilises the RGB (red, green, blue) primary colours on a computer display while encompassing most of the colours achievable on CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, key black) colour printers. That means with Adobe RGB, the photos you edit on a monitor will be colour accurate during the editing process and when printed. Each colour, R, G, and B, have values ranging between 0 and 1, which reference the white point and black point that help Adobe RGB achieve colour accuracy. As a larger colour space, Adobe RGB covers richer cyans and greens, and expands to areas of more intense orange, yellow, and magenta, providing more colours to utilise. 

Though Adobe RGB covers more colours, the range it covers does affect the bit depth, which is the number of bits in a pixel for each colour. A larger range may “stretch” the bits while a smaller range may have more concentrated bits. When selecting colour spaces, such as Adobe RGB vs sRGB, consider what colours your images need to reproduce and if you’ll be printing any images. Depending on the content you’re working on, having the ability to utilise both may be beneficial.

The image to the left is the Adobe RGB Colour Space Graph. The Image to the right is a side-by-side example of sRGB vs Adobe RGB.

For photographers, colour is everything, and if you’re using a camera that has the Adobe RGB colour space, you’ll need a monitor that matches the colours captured. From the scene captured on camera, to the editing process on the monitor, to the printed versions, maintaining colour accuracy is a necessity and using the same colour space throughout the process will help maintain those colours. Adobe RGB is important because it is available in multiple cameras and monitors, works specifically with Adobe Photoshop, and will represent accurate colours for printing. The wider range of colours provides better quality edits and is ideal for advanced photography projects or printed works. When looking for the best photography monitor, be sure to research what percentage of the Adobe RGB colour space it covers. 

At BenQ, we strive to reproduce accurate colours in every one of our professional photography monitors. AQCOLOR, a proprietary technology developed by BenQ, is built on meeting industrial standards, emphasising display details, and providing an out-of-the-box guarantee. Monitor capabilities are backed by third-party qualifications such as a Pantone Validated Certificate and Calman certification. The goal is to create products that will deliver on the promise “Colours You Can Trust” and empower creative professionals in every aspect of their work. 

Get the colour accuracy you need with BenQ PhotoVue Monitors, backed by AQCOLOR technology and Paper Color Sync, guaranteeing colour accuracy from screen to print. Additionally, SW and PD series purchasers and existing owners can get one FREE year of the new Pantone Connect Premium to bring the benefits of your smart device to your computer.