Why HEIC-to-JPEG conversions look washed out: three color checkpoints

A set of color measurements on two synthetic and CC0 test HEIC files tagged Display P3 suggests three checks, rather than the library, explain washed-out JPEG output. Decoders differ: WebKit handed over sRGB pixels, Chromium converted a P3 PNG to sRGB, and sharp read the metadata but could not decode the pixels in its prebuilt binary. The washed-out look appeared only when Pillow saved P3 numbers without attaching the ICC profile, shifting skin and saturated colors noticeably. Carrying the P3 profile or converting to sRGB both gave accurate results, though saturated P3 colors clip when converted to sRGB. The author also warns that tools like sips -g profile can report sRGB for files that carry no embedded profile, so reading the actual bytes is the reliable way to verify the result.