Color gamut

In color reproduction, including computer graphics and photography, the gamut, or color gamut /ˈɡæmət/, is a certain complete subset of colors. The most common usage refers to the subset of colors which can be accurately represented in a given circumstance, such as within a given color space or by a certain output device.

Another sense, less frequently used but not less correct, refers to the complete set of colors found within an image at a given time. In this context, digitizing a photograph, converting a digitized image to a different color space, or outputting it to a given medium using a certain output device generally alters its gamut, in the sense that some of the colors in the original are lost in the process.

The term gamut was adopted from the field of music, where it means the set of pitches of which musical melodies are composed; Shakespeare's use of the term in The Taming of the Shrew is sometimes attributed to the author/musician Thomas Morley. In the 1850s, the term was applied to a range of colors or hue, for example by Thomas De Quincey, who wrote "Porphyry, I have heard, runs through as large a gamut of hues as marble."

In color theory, the gamut of a device or process is that portion of the color space that can be represented, or reproduced. Generally, the color gamut is specified in the hue–saturation plane, as a system can usually produce colors over a wide range within its color gamut; for a subtractive color system (such as used in printing), the range of intensity available in the system is for the most part meaningless without considering system-specific properties (such as the illumination of the ink).

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