diff --git a/doc/plotting.rst b/doc/plotting.rst
index cd081811b99..2b816a24563 100644
--- a/doc/plotting.rst
+++ b/doc/plotting.rst
@@ -305,6 +305,8 @@ example, consider the original data in Kelvins rather than Celsius:
 The Celsius data contain 0, so a diverging color map was used. The
 Kelvins do not have 0, so the default color map was used.
 
+.. _robust-plotting:
+
 Robust
 ~~~~~~
 
diff --git a/doc/whats-new.rst b/doc/whats-new.rst
index 7bfe5991b78..12d3b910ca6 100644
--- a/doc/whats-new.rst
+++ b/doc/whats-new.rst
@@ -41,6 +41,7 @@ Enhancements
 - Support for using `Zarr`_ as storage layer for xarray.
   By `Ryan Abernathey <https://github.com/rabernat>`_.
 - :func:`xarray.plot.imshow` now handles RGB and RGBA images.
+  Saturation can be adjusted with ``vmin`` and ``vmax``, or with ``robust=True``.
   By `Zac Hatfield-Dodds <https://github.com/Zac-HD>`_.
 - Experimental support for parsing ENVI metadata to coordinates and attributes
   in :py:func:`xarray.open_rasterio`.
diff --git a/xarray/plot/plot.py b/xarray/plot/plot.py
index 2cc39241556..0423c0967d1 100644
--- a/xarray/plot/plot.py
+++ b/xarray/plot/plot.py
@@ -15,8 +15,8 @@
 import pandas as pd
 from datetime import datetime
 
-from .utils import (_determine_cmap_params, _infer_xy_labels, get_axis,
-                    import_matplotlib_pyplot)
+from .utils import (ROBUST_PERCENTILE, _determine_cmap_params,
+                    _infer_xy_labels, get_axis, import_matplotlib_pyplot)
 from .facetgrid import FacetGrid
 from xarray.core.pycompat import basestring
 
@@ -449,10 +449,28 @@ def newplotfunc(darray, x=None, y=None, figsize=None, size=None,
         if imshow_rgb:
             # Don't add a colorbar when showing an image with explicit colors
             add_colorbar = False
+            # Calculate vmin and vmax automatically for `robust=True`
+            if robust:
+                if vmin is None:
+                    vmin = np.nanpercentile(darray, ROBUST_PERCENTILE)
+                if vmax is None:
+                    vmax = np.nanpercentile(darray, 100 - ROBUST_PERCENTILE)
+                robust = False
+            # Scale interval [vmin .. vmax] to [0 .. 1] and clip to bounds
+            if vmin is not None or vmax is not None:
+                vmin = vmin if vmin is not None else darray.min()
+                vmax = vmax if vmax is not None else darray.max()
+                darray = ((darray.astype('f8') - vmin) / (vmax - vmin))
+                vmin, vmax = None, None
+                # There's a cyclic dependency via DataArray, so we can't
+                # import xarray.ufuncs in global or outer scope.
+                import xarray.ufuncs as xu
+                darray = xu.minimum(xu.maximum(darray.astype('f4'), 0), 1)
 
         # Handle facetgrids first
         if row or col:
             allargs = locals().copy()
+            allargs.pop('xu', None)
             allargs.pop('imshow_rgb')
             allargs.update(allargs.pop('kwargs'))
 
@@ -625,6 +643,11 @@ def imshow(x, y, z, ax, **kwargs):
     dimension can be interpreted as RGB or RGBA color channels and
     allows this dimension to be specified via the kwarg ``rgb=``.
 
+    Unlike matplotlib, Xarray can apply ``vmin`` and ``vmax`` to RGB or RGBA
+    data, by applying a single scaling factor and offset to all bands.
+    Passing  ``robust=True`` infers ``vmin`` and ``vmax``
+    :ref:`in the usual way <robust-plotting>`.
+
     .. note::
         This function needs uniformly spaced coordinates to
         properly label the axes. Call DataArray.plot() to check.
diff --git a/xarray/plot/utils.py b/xarray/plot/utils.py
index abd62df2296..2c9fbb91aaa 100644
--- a/xarray/plot/utils.py
+++ b/xarray/plot/utils.py
@@ -11,6 +11,9 @@
 from ..core.utils import is_scalar
 
 
+ROBUST_PERCENTILE = 2.0
+
+
 def _load_default_cmap(fname='default_colormap.csv'):
     """
     Returns viridis color map
@@ -165,7 +168,6 @@ def _determine_cmap_params(plot_data, vmin=None, vmax=None, cmap=None,
     cmap_params : dict
         Use depends on the type of the plotting function
     """
-    ROBUST_PERCENTILE = 2.0
     import matplotlib as mpl
 
     calc_data = np.ravel(plot_data[~pd.isnull(plot_data)])
diff --git a/xarray/tests/test_plot.py b/xarray/tests/test_plot.py
index 4615c59884a..55fba587e27 100644
--- a/xarray/tests/test_plot.py
+++ b/xarray/tests/test_plot.py
@@ -1115,6 +1115,16 @@ def test_rgb_errors_bad_dim_sizes(self):
         with pytest.raises(ValueError):
             arr.plot.imshow(rgb='band')
 
+    def test_normalize_rgb_imshow(self):
+        for kwds in (
+            dict(vmin=-1), dict(vmax=2),
+            dict(vmin=-1, vmax=1), dict(vmin=0, vmax=0),
+            dict(vmin=0, robust=True), dict(vmax=-1, robust=True),
+        ):
+            da = DataArray(easy_array((5, 5, 3), start=-0.6, stop=1.4))
+            arr = da.plot.imshow(**kwds).get_array()
+            assert 0 <= arr.min() <= arr.max() <= 1, kwds
+
 
 class TestFacetGrid(PlotTestCase):