It’s that time of the year when our plants in the yard are starting to bloom. My knowledge of flowers is just broad enough to be able to look at one and say “that’s pretty.” I have no idea what this flower is, but it is colorful. In fact, it was the bright color that I noticed first, because I suspected that it was “out of gamut,” which means that colors are so intense that they can’t be recorded properly in a photograph. It turned out my suspicions were correct – the flower is such a rich purple / magenta that it can’t be displayed accurately in a photograph.
When photographers talk about color gamut, they’re referring to the range of colors that can be displayed on a screen or printed on paper. Every device has limitations, including our own eyes. The color gamut we can see is referred to as the visible spectrum. There are lots of colors (wavelengths of light) that we can’t see, such as infra-red and ultra-violet. Color film, display devices such as TVs and monitors and color printers area all even more limited than our eyes. You might be able to see the color of these flowers in person, but the purple color is so intense that printers and monitors can’t duplicate the color. So, the best you can do is to get the color as close as you can, so that it looks as good as you can get it.
The color gamut is the range of colors that a can be displayed by a particular process, and there a many well documented color spaces. A small color space has a relatively small gamut and is pretty limited in the range of intense colors that it can display, For instance, newspapers tend to have one of the smallest color spaces, and other printed materials like books and magazines are nearly as restricted. High Definition TVs and most computer monitors are better, but laptop computers tend to be very limited. Photographic prints are about the same as a good TV or monitor, but high-end monitors are capable of displaying a wider range of colors. One of the largest color spaces available today is from a good photographic inkjet printer. So actually, one of the best ways to get good, rich colors is with a high-end color inkjet printer. But even the best can’t handle everything nature has to offer.
Sometimes we just can’t duplicate what nature can create so easily.
By the way, be sure to check out my latest post about Central Illinois artists and entertainers at my new Playing in Peoria website. The most recent post is a profile of musician Mark Rogers of Morton.
