Color Profiles Explained: sRGB vs Adobe RGB vs Display P3 — Stop Your Exports Looking Wrong

If you've ever exported an image and thought "the colors look off," you're not alone. The culprit is almost always a color profile mismatch.

Here's what actually matters:

sRGB is the lowest common denominator. Every screen supports it. Every browser defaults to it. If your image is going on the web, this is what you want. Period.

Adobe RGB has a 35% wider gamut — mainly in greens and cyans. It's useful for print workflows where your printer can reproduce those extra colors. But here's the trap: if you upload an Adobe RGB image to the web without converting, browsers clamp the gamut to sRGB and everything looks desaturated.

Display P3 is Apple's standard. iPhones shoot in P3. MacBooks display P3. It sits between sRGB and Adobe RGB in gamut size.Most social media platforms now handle P3 correctly, but random CMS systems? Hit or miss.