Sharp adds cyan and yellow to its RGB displays, laughs scornfully at magenta

Sharp is taking some cues from the nearly dearly departed print publishing world for its next line of LCDs, adding two colors to the typical RGB gamut. Cyan and yellow, half of the CMYK spread that makes your Sunday Garfield sketch pop, are going to be added to the company's displays to make up what it's dubbing "Multi-Primary-Color Technology." The tech is said to be able to reproduce 99 percent of all colors able to be perceived by the human eye -- because apparently 1.7 billion colors from a traditional LCD wasn't enough. The displays will be on display at the Society for Information Display Symposium in San Antonio starting next week. So, lucky Texans, prepare to get your cone cells massaged.

[Bluxfire @ May 29th 2009 9:32AM]

Why only add 2 colours? Surely if they can add 2, they can add another 1 in there...

[insky @ May 29th 2009 9:37AM]

Maybe they're afraid of T Mobile going after them.

[iCanada @ May 29th 2009 1:04PM]

Prepare to be surprised: it's because magenta is not a real color. It doesn't exist except in our perception. There's no wavelength of light that is magenta.

This website will probably explain better: http://www.biotele.com/magenta.html

[Philip @ May 29th 2009 6:36PM]

the reason this is totaly brilliant is that it is impossible to repoduce cyan/yellow properly from rgb, look at a blue led on some gadget you have lying around and try to reproduce that intensity on your monitor, you can't .

[Jay Evans @ May 29th 2009 9:33AM]

"because apparently 1.7 billion colors from a traditional LCD wasn't enough."

It isn't. If you discount most or the near black and near white colors it doesn't really leave you with many "see-able" colors. Who on engadget can discern the difference between 0,0,0, and 0,0,1?

Add in lack of gamut in blue and greens on RGB monitors and you'll quickly understand why this could be great progress.

[fieldcar @ May 29th 2009 10:12AM]

The way this is posted as a story, and the lack of understanding disturbs me.

This tech seeks to expand the flat spots of the RGB gamut to colours out of phase from each of the 3 emitted colours, not CMYK, which is not quite 1/3rd out of phase relative to RGB.

READ, GOOD:
http://www.printernational.org/rgb-versus-cmyk.php

[Felixxx @ May 29th 2009 10:55AM]

Tim, what do you mean by "the nearly dearly departed print publishing world"? True, newspapers, magazines and books may become a thing of the past pretty soon, but you know what - let me know when your brand new iPhone 7G or whatnot arives in the mail neatly wrapped in a colour version of Kindle, instead of a CMYK-printed cardboard box. Or do you expect to be able to download hardware anytime soon? Just asking ;D

[dros @ May 29th 2009 9:38AM]

That should produce a very nice blend.

[Tarnation @ May 29th 2009 9:38AM]

It is probably a good thing didn't included magenta. It is usually the first cartridge to leak in a color laser printer. lol

[Duke @ May 29th 2009 10:10AM]

Magenta's been asking for it with that awful attitude like its better than everyone else. You pay what you owe magenta!

[xmidkx @ May 29th 2009 8:40PM]

wow, so much magenta hate around here!

[Vangelos Gourmet Melloy @ May 29th 2009 9:39AM]

GOOD 。

[tony @ May 29th 2009 9:39AM]

con cells and rod cells .... triggered a synaptic response in some long forgotten memory neuron .. bring on RGBCY

[Will @ May 29th 2009 9:44AM]

It's all about maximising the Colour Gamut of the display. Typically three primaries (red, green and blue) get you most of the way there. Adding a couple more would get you almost all the way there. Adding another might not gain you many more colours and would also make the display even more complicated to drive... check out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut.

The image: http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/repspec/Cie-Chart.png shows all visable colours. If you pick three primary colours and draw lines between them you get a triangle and every colour inside this triangle can be reproduced on the display. Make that triangle into a pentagon and you can almost fill all the colour space...

[squeeg @ May 29th 2009 9:44AM]

I hate magenta (always have). Kudos to Sharp for putting that bossy bitch in her place. Oh ya, a cartridge is leaking in my printer at work as we speak, go figure.

[Tom @ May 29th 2009 9:45AM]

This is really going to screw up ClearType

[Hackettman @ May 29th 2009 9:51AM]

This is very exciting...... Im sure expensive. But exciting....

[mocax @ May 29th 2009 9:52AM]

how do i get rid of color banding in my LCD monitor? rather obvious when viewing smooth gradients....
it looks ugly.... makes me want to return to my 17" crt monitor..... :(

it also has this glowy color thing in corners, when the screen is all black.

it's a NEC 2690WUXi.... paid nearly $1000 for it..... :(

[james @ May 29th 2009 10:17AM]

The 2690WUXi should not have a nonuniform back light. Call NEC. Those are really good monitors and have a good warranty: 4 Years Parts and Labor including back light. You paid extra for the quality, you should have it.

[KC - Enhance a Colour @ May 29th 2009 10:10AM]

The parallels with the large format digital printing industry & TV's is amazing. As an industry, we've gone to offering bigger sizes, offering up to 16' wide vinyl banners, billboards, or theater backdrops. We've gone to adding colors, from 4, to 6, to 8, adding white ink. Finally, like the HDTV resolutions 720, 1080i, or 1080p, in printing we're constantly offering higher resolutions.

[msalivar @ May 30th 2009 12:53AM]

We're up to 12 colors on aqueous; though a lot of it tends to be light versions (Lk, Lm, Lc), photo/matte black, and gloss enhancer; HP and Canon are using RGB inks now. Even the ultraconservative Epson is using green and orange in their *900 series, orange really sounding to me out of a solvent printer's playbook.

White, on the other hand, is definitely something the solvent side (and maybe UV?) have on us. To be honest, I'm surprised they haven't implemented a white ink in favor of all the Lk, Lm, and Lc inks. I'm sure it would help towards a more consistent gamut on off white stocks, as well.

[TT @ May 29th 2009 10:14AM]

Just gimme some OLED screens already! (One with a decent format and resolution)

[mirakutea @ May 29th 2009 11:01AM]

hopefully 5 years and not 10+ zzz.

[Notme @ May 29th 2009 10:57AM]

CMYK is already in RGB. In what way are they adding it?

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2009/05/19/hexadecimal-color-grey-88/

[MioTheGreat @ May 29th 2009 11:50AM]

It's a hell of a lot more complex than that. Read up on color spaces, gamut, etc.

[Jacob @ May 29th 2009 11:00AM]

Maybe they're just practicing. Having CMYK display ability is going to become very important for e-ink displays, because RGB simply DOES NOT work for print and print-like media. (Yes, you can convert RGB signals to CMYK, but native applications are generally better.)

[morcheeba @ May 29th 2009 11:38AM]

RGB vs. CMYK isn't just an arbitrary choice of "print media" vs. "computers/tv"; the difference is additive color vs. subtractive color. If the subpixels are adjacent (like on a monitor), then it's additive; if they are stacked on top of each other (like how they print the sunday comics), then it's subtractive. It depends on the display technology.

[Jacob @ May 29th 2009 1:42PM]

Not quite. It's not a matter of adjacency vs stacking, it's a matter of producing light vs absorbing light. RGB can be "stacked", just look at old 3-bulb projectors. Halftone printing also has many dots that are adjacent to each other, rather than on top of.

RGB works in the additive model, where light is produced. CMYK works in the subtractive model, where light is absorbed. (That's why you may notice there's no RGB printers.)

/went to art school

[Alan @ May 29th 2009 11:17AM]

Magenta isn't even part of the spectrum. You have to combine blue and red, and the brain just sees it as magenta. So to add Magenta to the monitor, they...have to add blue and red.

[Wwhat @ May 30th 2009 2:34AM]

Not even voted up although it is technically correct I understand, guess you need to put things bombastic to impress people.

[mu5a5hi @ May 29th 2009 11:27AM]

Shame they didn't add the K - BLACK. thats what LCD's really need.

[WilfordBrimley @ May 29th 2009 7:37PM]

"Shame they didn't add the K - BLACK. thats what LCD's really need."

QFT!

[Wwhat @ May 30th 2009 2:46AM]

Theoretically they could invent a separate layer that goes 100% dark under powercontrol and add that underneath the normal layer to have a K layer, so you aren't just amusing and right but it's actually something they should work on, it should just not use polarization as basis to work well.
Makes you wonder what kept them from thinking that up all these last years.

[mrm @ May 29th 2009 11:41AM]

just look for apple to sell it...with a weird apple-ism name.

[wonkydonkydotnet @ May 29th 2009 11:55AM]

Man! -Purple and orange just aren't getting the respect they used to.

+while they're at it, all of Sharp's displays will of course be LED-backlit IPS panels with Kuro tech licensed from Pioneer, right?

[Matt @ May 29th 2009 1:32PM]

Regarding the comment "the nearly dearly departed print publishing world" - there is always a need for print. As much as e-books etc are becoming more and more popular, many people feel a need for the tactile quality of a printed piece, using beautiful stocks which compliment a job and are able to add a lot more impact to an application.

And just like Felixxx said, the packaging industry can benefit greatly from the use of a quality colour or textured stock, which can also compliment the product within.

And like KC - Enhance a Colour mentioned - the digital printing industry will help to maintain the use of paper every day because of what it can offer compared to the traditional offset litho machines.

I for one hope the print industry picks up again (really difficult times just now), and I know for certain there's thousands of graphic designers out there (In the UK alone) which are still inspired and appreciate lovely printed samples.

Just my thoughts about the paper industry of course; regarding the 2- colour displays, I don't have much of an opinion of it.

[Joe @ May 29th 2009 12:56PM]

Since many of their displays are 6-bit, all the extra colors help.

Incidentally, 8-bit isn't enough for some work since the banding is obvious to some of us.

[Wwhat @ May 30th 2009 2:28AM]

That can be deceiving, if you see banding clearly it might just be an issue with the monitor rather than a limitation of the 8bit, ask dell about it ;)
Not that it isn't time to move to 10bit, I just know from personal experience that two monitors that show the same 8bit gradient can differ, and if you have the settings a bit wrong on an LCD it goes all haywire and it becomes pronounced, where on the same monitor if the settings are not messed it can be very smooth.
And on CRT's the graphicscard used also makes a difference (I trust and hope that doesn't happen often on digital displays, although drivers can do odd things to colors too).

[Creativepart @ May 29th 2009 12:59PM]

Bit of useless info: The photo's used to illustrate this story are of the Moulton Barn on "Mormon Row" at the base of the Grand Tetons in Teton National Park in Jackson, Wyoming. You should go.

[Mel @ May 29th 2009 1:01PM]

But will the colors blend?

[doug @ May 29th 2009 3:46PM]

DLP based projectors have been adding yellow and cyan segments to increase the color gamut and maintain brightness for a few years now - it definitely makes for a better image.

http://www.dlp.com/projectors/brilliant_color.aspx

[narutohendrix @ May 29th 2009 5:39PM]

Not even gonna lie, that title made me laugh. But seriously, who is this gonna help? The casual user has no user for a monitor that is used by the printing industry, the printing industry as no use for a monitor that only uses half of the colors it needs. Seems like they are just doing this for shits and giggles.

[Benson @ May 30th 2009 4:50PM]

What can you possibly mean, "only uses half of the colors [the printing industry] needs"?

Have you not read _any_ of the helpful comments above? (The ones that nobody seems to read or +rank...)

K is black -- on an emissive display, you just turn all colors off -- then you got black.

M is on the line of purples -- with pure, deep red and violet primaries, you could get a pure magenta (or anything else on the line) by mixing only. Using typical red and blue primaries, you can get as close to pure magenta as you can to the extreme spectral colors, subject to the usual brightness/gamut tradeoff. You'll certainly cover typical printing primaries.

C and Y lie on seriously convex regions of the spectral curve, so adding them with similar saturations to the other primaries will substantially increase gamut, so they're actually useful.

(Oh, and the printing industry doesn't just use CMYK; expanding gamut helps with representing spot color -- in fact, I'm pretty sure high-end RGB monitors can already represent the normal CMYK gamut.)

Recommended reading if the above didn't make sense:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromaticity_diagram
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamut