What Color Space Should You Assume for These Files?

Treat every file in this archive as 8-bit sRGB IEC61966-2.1. That is the working space of the web, of PowerPoint, of Figma, of most office printers, and of the browsers that show the previews. If the PNG has no embedded ICC profile, still treat it as sRGB. Do not assign Adobe RGB (1998), Display P3 or a random monitor profile. Assigning a wider space without converting makes the neon look dull or neon-wrong the moment someone else opens the file.

Why sRGB is the right assumption

These plates are designed to be viewed on ordinary displays and dropped into ordinary work files. sRGB is the common language. A tagged sRGB PNG and an untagged PNG that everyone agrees is sRGB behave the same in Chrome, in Keynote and in a modern Photoshop color setup that uses North America Web/Internet.

What you may find inside the file:

• An sRGB chunk or an iCCP chunk that names sRGB. Good. Leave it.
• No color chunk at all. Still treat as sRGB. Browsers already do.
• XMP that repeats the same assumption. Harmless until a client legal team asks you to strip metadata.

What you should not find, and should not add: a Display P3 profile "because the laptop is wide-gamut," or Adobe RGB "because print." Those profiles describe a different encoding. If you assign Adobe RGB to sRGB pixels, greens collapse and the cyan HUD lines shift. If you convert from a fake P3 assignment into sRGB for the web, you bake that error in.

Check before you argue. In Photoshop, open the file and read the strip at the bottom. You want "sRGB IEC61966-2.1" or "Untagged RGB" with your working RGB set to sRGB. In ExifTool: exiftool -s -ColorSpace -ProfileDescription -Gamma file.png. Empty output means untagged, not "mystery cinema space."

Bit depth is 8 bits per channel. That is 256 steps. Fine for a tech plate with hard edges. Tight for a long synthwave sunset. If you convert 8-bit sRGB into a small CMYK space without dither, the sunset bands. Convert to 16-bit only as a temporary workspace, do the profile change, then dither back to 8-bit for the TIFF you send.

Office printers and slide decks should stay in sRGB. PowerPoint will not honor a clever FOGRA conversion you made "just in case." Give the deck the sRGB PNG. Give the press a separate export.

Convert on purpose when the job leaves the screen

Print is the conversion job. Ask the printer for a destination profile. Common answers:

• Coated FOGRA39 or FOGRA51 for European offset.
• GRACoL 2013 CRPC6 or SWOP for US coated stock.
• Japan Color 2011 Coated for that market.
• A house ICC the shop emailed you. Use that, not a generic.

Convert, do not assign. In Photoshop: Edit > Convert to Profile, engine Adobe ACE, intent Relative Colorimetric, black point compensation on, dither on. For a neon-heavy plate, proof it. Saturation intent will move the cyberpunk magentas in ways that look "rich" and wrong. Relative Colorimetric clips the handful of sRGB colors that sit outside the press, which is usually a few electric cyans. Soft-proof those. If a line must stay electric, you may need to recolor it by hand after conversion, or keep that job on a digital press that accepts RGB.

Packaging and mockups often want both: an sRGB PNG for the on-screen mockup and a CMYK TIFF for the dieline. Same source file, two exports. Name them slug-3840x2160-srgb.png and slug-trim-fogra39.tif.

Do not convert "to be professional" before you know the destination. A CMYK TIFF dropped back into Figma will look brown and then get saved as sRGB again. That round trip is how gradients die.

If a client insists their brand book is Display P3 only, convert a copy for their motion team and keep the sRGB master for everyone else. The animated sibling on Unique Live Wallpaper is also a screen product; do not treat it as a print profile reference.

Hex values you pick on top of these plates should be specified in sRGB. #38bdf8 on a cyan plate is an sRGB number. If the brand book lists P3 values, convert the type color too, or the type will not match the plate.

When you hand the file over, write the color space in the filename and in the readme. People guess otherwise, and guessing is how Adobe RGB gets assigned on a Friday afternoon.