[1] Beginning in 1997, Adobe Systems was looking into creating ICC profiles that its consumers could use in conjunction with Photoshop's new color management features.

Lead developer of Photoshop, Thomas Knoll decided to build an ICC profile around specifications he found in the documentation for the SMPTE 240M standard, the precursor to Rec.

[failed verification] The real values were much closer to sRGB's, which avid Photoshop consumers did not enjoy as a working environment.

To make matters worse, an engineer had made an error when copying the red primary chromaticity coordinates, resulting in an even more inaccurate representation of the SMPTE standard.

Through the application of the 3x3 matrix below (derived from the inversion of the color space chromaticity coordinates and a chromatic adaptation to CIE Standard Illuminant D50 using the Bradford transformation matrix), the input image's normalized XYZ tristimulus values are transformed into RGB tristimulus values.

In fact, Adobe RGB (1998) expands its advantages to areas of intense orange, yellow, and magenta regions.

Otherwise, the produced colors would be squeezed into a smaller range (making them appear duller) in order to match sRGB's more widely used gamut.

A similar, yet not as dramatic concentration of bit depth occurs with Adobe RGB (1998) versus sRGB, except in three dimensions rather than one.

[6] On the contrary, one may have plenty of "spare" bits if using a 16-bit image, thus negating any reduction due to the choice of working space.