Color Gamut (Space)

COLOR GAMUT (SPACE)

• Color Gamut (also called Color Space) refers to the range of available colors.
• Gamut varies by technology, device, manufacturer, standards, calibration and a multidude of other factors.
• Here is a relative comparison of various RGB and CMYK color spaces.
• - CIE (Chromaticity Diagram)
  - RGB (triangle)
  - sRGB (smaller triangle)
  - CMYK (smaller yet, rounded corners, some colors outside of the RBG triangles BCGY edge)
• Light is pure and therefore our monitor's red, green and blue is sufficient for accurate reproduction of color, including white.
• Precisely combining a near perfect cyan, magenta and yellow still yields a muddy brownish tone - obtaining a layered absolute black is difficult to achieve.
• The 99.99% purity of chemicals inks, dyes and pigments is coupled with an imperfect physical substrate (paper, plastic, metal, etc.).
• The fourth chemical, or "k" for black increases the shadow areas, reduces usage of the other three colors (black is more cost effective to manufacture), and potentially elliminates mis-registered text (hard to read out-of-alignment or "fuzzy" edged letters created from combined inks).