What does Gamut Limits mean?

Because of the completely different technologies they use, the range of colours a camera can record, the range of colours that a monitor can display, and the range of colours a printer can print, are all different! Each has a different, so-called, colour ‘gamut'.

Colour gamut differences mean that there are some colours that cameras detect that cannot be reproduced by printer or monitor, and some colours that printers can print that can’t be seen on all monitors, and vice versa!

Given the current state of printer and monitor technology, it is simply not possible to get identically the same colour range on a monitor as on a printer.

The pictures show the gamuts of a typical reasonable quality computer display and a good photo printer.

The gamut of a typical good quality monitor. Roll your mouse over it to see how the colour gamut of my Epson 3880 printer gamut differs.

As you can see on the pictures there are many colours that the printer can display that the monitor cannot.

The colours that a device cannot reproduce are called out-of-gamut colours.

The good news is that most of the colours which occur in the real world, and which feature in most photographs, are within the gamuts of both good monitors and good printers.

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