[jacobolus]

I would consider just continuing to use the CIELAB adjusted cube root function, with a linear part near zero. It has been used widely for 45 years and people understand it pretty well. It is plenty fast to implement (just takes one extra conditional move or the like and one FMA).

[JyrkiAlakuijala]

We don't need to use something just because it is old. CIELAB is based on 2 degree samples of color. Colors work differently at smaller angles due to the different densities of receptors, particularly the larger size and lower density of S receptors. Pixels on most recent monitors are about 0.02 degrees, 100x smaller in angle, 10'000x smaller in area than what the old color research is based on.