Technical Terms: Color Gamut

A color gamut is the range of colors that can be display, printed, or captured by a particular monitor, film, printer, scanner or other device that deals with color images. The larger the color gamut, the more closely a device can approximate the full range of colors visible to the human eye. Since all colors are generated by combining primary colors, the color gamut of a device is mostly determined by the primary colors in use. For a monitor, the primary colors are determined by the physicalproperties of the red, green, and blue  phosphors embedded in the face of its picture tube (CRT). For film, the color gamut depends on the dyes contained in the different layers of the emulsion. For printers, the color gamut depends on the colors of the inks that are combined and deposited on the paper.