DCI-P3 VERSUS SRGB: HERE'S WHY CHOOSING A SMARTPHONE WITH A P3 SCREEN
Since the dawn of time, man has love to barricade himself in factions, to feel part of a group, to side with one ideal rather than another . In the contemporary era there are photographers (or filmmakers, such as Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson for example) who have sided with film, others with digital, among gamers instead we have had epic challenges such as SEGA against Nintendo , or Sony opposite to Microsoft . In the smartphones world, on the other hand, there is a battle between lovers of Apple and iOS and diehards of Android, and we want to talk about this war today. Not in a general way but by taking a very precise element: the color depth of the screens . techsmartinfo
The Cupertino manufacturer has for years played all its
cards on a wide color range called DCI-P3 , since the iPhone 7 family in 2016,
while on this point Android only some time ago made interesting steps forward.
But is a DCI-P3 display really worth it? What real differences are there with
sRGB screens?

DCI-P3 against sRGB
At first it was Android itself that did not know how to
manage a very "wide" color profile like the P3, only the latest
versions managed to "put a patch" on it, with apps like Google Photos
that immediately aligned. Consequently, the first compatible terminals have
also appeared on the market, just to give some examples we can name Oppo Find
X2 Pro, Xiaomi Mi 10, the OnePlus 7 family, even the new Samsung Galaxy S20
Ultra manages to reproduce 110% of the DCI range- P3.
But let's try to clarify once and for all, what advantages
does the DCI-P3 bring compared to the classic sRGB? To better understand this
concept, an image (below) comes to our aid that leaves little room for
imagination - and shows us how the P3 profile is actually capable ofrepresent
many more colors and shades than classic sRGB , with many advantages in the
rendering of photographs and videos.
In absolute terms, taking the CIE 1931 (reference) color
space, the P3 reproduces 45.5% of the entire gamut, 25% more than sRGB. To
physically understand the concept, we refer you to a site that shows the same
photos in both sRGB and P3 , so you can immediately see the difference between
the two color profiles. Obviously, if you use a non-P3 screen, the differences
will be less noticeable.
The DCI that precedes the P3 the words Digital Cinema
Initiatives, an association strongly desired by giants such as Warner Bros,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Twentieth Century Fox Film, Universal Studios and SONY
Pictures Entertainment to have a better performance than sRGB precisely on consumer
screens such as smartphones, tablets, monitors and laptops (there are several
laptops on the market to offer the P3, including the most recent MacBook Pro
and iPad Pro / Air 3). It is only about time, the goal is to completely replace
the sRGB profile with the P3 , the high end of the smartphone market has
practically already done it, we just have to wait for the alignment of the
medium-low range.
Software + Hardware
Of course the hardware cannot do all the dirty work, it is
essential that the software also lends a great hand. Apple has long aligned
both fronts, taking P3 profile photographs and thus showing them to their
fullest potential on the screens of the latest Apple devices. Android phones
will have to do the same to play on a par with Cupertino, and it will also be
essential to gradually change the web - where the sRGB profile reigns supreme
also for compatibility reasons. Indeed, and it is certainly no secret, sRGB is
the most widespread profile in the world, the horse to bet on from the point of
view of extreme compatibility.
Even if it is something of a sacrilege, even the best SLR
and mirrorless cameras on the market continue to offer sRGB as a color
option.opposite to the more performing Adobe RGB (52.1% of the CIE 1931 range)
- but only for compatibility reasons precisely, so as not to have to modify
everything in post-production. Furthermore, returning to smartphones, it is
also good to pay attention to the thousands of photo editing apps present on
the various stores.
In case you want to keep a P3 profile inside an image, and
therefore all its original colors, it is good to treat it with compatible
software ( think of Adobe Lightroom for example , even in the mobile version)
or with the proprietary apps for photo editing.
Most of the third-party apps, on the other hand, those
perhaps useful for adding filters and so on, when saving do nothing but sweep
away any additional nuances to return to sRGB . This is fine for social or web
use, but not if you want to do "something more" with your creations.
The process of transition to P3 will still be assimilated
well, indeed most people do not even imagine what we are talking about, in any
case - as mentioned above - very soon the DCI-P3 will be the standard of the
mass market, the times they are quite mature and it is good to immediately
understand the benefits and advantages, also by virtue of a future purchase.