The expression “runs the gamut” rings a bell with most people and means to passes through the entire range of…
…which is useful in this Not for nothing because colour gamuts are all about the range of colour that can be reproduced in a particular environment.
Visible (to humans) light is pretty much the widest gamut out there – and, to be honest, we have only designed for human target audiences. All other gamuts describe subsets of colour range that are specific to an output device (eg. a computer screen, or a phone), or the printed page.
This detailed article from creativepro provides a huge amount of information about colour:
Out of Gamut: Color-Correct Vocabulary
As with our other “Not for Nothing” posts, we’re not expecting you to be (or be-come) experts in the field. The purpose of these posts is to open up the world of stuff that needs to be dealt with in order to achieve good quality graphic design results and to re-assure you that with us, you can rest assured these things are in hand.
