Printing outside of sRGB Gamut?

I've been under the impression that most printers, pro and consumer models alike, are incapable of rendering anything outside of sRGB. That, at least as I understand it, is why labs like WHCC, Millers, etc want sRGB files.

Am I totally off base?

Jim,

Yes, Many of the current inkjets and especcially the new ones such as the Epson 7900/4900/etc are capable of beyond sRGB.

A review of the 4900 on Luminous-Landscape:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/revie ... work.shtml

Jim Gunning

Thanks Jim.

I gave up on self-printing quite a while ago, so I guess I'm behind the times.

They are now talking about extending beyond Adobe RGB in some areas with the latest pro printers. The sRGB thing is lowest common denominator, but is probably about right for traditional photo prints, the latest pro pigment printers have a gamut that extends beyond normal monitors.

Inkjets have exceeded the gamut of sRGB in a lot of important color ranges, for years now. Traditional photo printers are better approximated by sRGB, since the gamut of these devices usually is quite a bit lower than inkjets. But even in these cases, traditional photo printers still may exceed the gamut of sRGB in certain hues. For example I just checked archived copies of two ICC profiles from traditional photo printers used by a big-name professional lab. Both have a gamut volume that's only about 55% of sRGB, but can print hues in the green-blue range that are beyond the limit of sRGB. This could be an important color range to a landscape photographer, for example.

As Chris notes, inkjets have been exceeding Adobe RGB in some hues as well for some time. This is demonstrated in the Epson 4900 article linked above, where a gamut plot shows that even the original Epson 3800 can print beyond Adobe RGB in the yellows and green-blues.

sRGB is a catch-all, lowest common denominator kind of thing and hasn't fit a lot of devices very well since digital really started to take off across the board. It's rapidly becoming obsolete from camera, to display, to printer. Most people probably don't care about optimizing color from capture to reproduction; as with most other things, optimizing comes at a cost and most people don't need or want to pay it (time, money or other). But for those who do, it's useful to take images from capture through processing to reproduction with a view towards high fidelity at each step. sRGB isn't a shining candidate in that case, though of course it can be fine in specific cases where its limitations are not a problem...