[Chris_Newton]

Yes, much better ways of representing and working with colours are known. Sadly, support for them is missing in most of the software we use, including Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, the Affinity suite, Sketch, Figma and all major browsers. The best we get out of the box is usually HSB/HSL.

Of course, you can make the effort to construct a colour palette using a better model and then convert the colours. However, as soon as you start deviating from those carefully chosen colours — to build a gradient, or to apply filters or transparency, for example — you’re back to relying on the software to do the maths, and if its internal colour model is weak, the results will reflect that.

[formerly_proven]

Photoshop does support LAB but all of the advanced color science (and much better UX) is found in tools for movie production (Resolve & friends) and not in photo editors, which are largely shit.