Colour Science & Perception
what the eye settles, and what it cannot
Theme

The thread: Outside the gamut

Most colours a human can see cannot be shown on this page. The usual response is to clip them silently and print the picture anyway. The response here is to mark them and say how far out they are.
0.00.20.40.60.80.00.20.40.60.8xyD65460480500520540560580600620hatched: outside sRGB15% of the visible area is reachableat luminance Y = 0.55CIE 1931 2° observer Matching and measuring

Most of this diagram cannot be shown

The chromaticity horseshoe is the canonical illustration of colour science, and nearly every printed copy is filled edge to edge with colours the page cannot produce. The honest version marks them, and the marking covers most of the picture.

 one rectangle, or two?a visible seam means the display reaches past sRGBevaluated by the browser, not the buildCSS color(display-p3 …) Where the model breaks

The display is an unknown

This site is displayed on the very apparatus it is about, and it knows almost nothing about that apparatus. Two figures here stop assuming and ask instead — a probe for the transfer function and a probe for the gamut.

 0.00.20.40.60.80.00.20.40.60.8xysRGBP3Rec. 2020areas are diagram areas, not perceptualCIE 1931 2° observer Matching and measuring

What a gamut costs

Three primaries reach a triangle and the visible region is not a triangle, so something has to give. Widening the primaries helps, has a price in precision and compatibility, and runs into a limit that is geometric rather than technological.

All themes