Gamut Clamping

What is gamut clamping?

The HCT color space can represent colors that don't exist in sRGB (the color space displays use). When you set a high chroma at certain hue+tone combinations, the actual displayed color gets "clamped" to the nearest sRGB-representable color by Material Color Utilities.

For example: Hue 205° (blue), Chroma 72, Tone 61 → the sRGB gamut can only produce Chroma ~45 at that hue/tone. The extra chroma is silently lost.

How Systema handles it

The HCT Color Picker detects clamping by round-tripping: it converts your requested H/C/T to hex, then back to HCT, and compares. If any channel differs by more than 0.5, it shows:

⚠ clamped, actual chroma: 45.2

This tells you the maximum chroma the display can produce at your chosen hue and tone. There's no benefit to increasing chroma beyond this point -- the result won't change.

The clamped warning now shows a single "snap H:X C:Y" button (or just one channel if only one is clamped) with a shrink icon. Clicking snaps all clamped channels at once to their maximum gamut values.

Practical implications

• High-chroma colors (vivid red, electric blue) clamp at lower tones (darker) and higher tones (lighter). Mid-tones allow the most chroma.
• Low-chroma colors (neutrals, pastels) rarely clamp.
• Gradient points at different hues may have different clamp ceilings. Systema shows clamping per gradient point independently.

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