Ryan Moulton maps out physical objects and natural phenomena containing colors that standard screens cannot render

@moultano Was pleased to find it had nothing to do with these guys

It’s ya boi

I spent the last month obsessed with finding colors that can't be displayed on a conventional screen. This is what I found. https://moultano.wordpress.com/2026/06/19/where-to-find-the-colors-your-screen-cant-show-you/

@moultano okay addendum I spent a while trying but I just can't see your claim that traffic lights are blue. they're green.

@moultano A truly great article! I would personally add opals as objects of unrendereable color, and arguably pieces of amber when looked through (the yellows on most displays are really muddy).

Also, to be serious, the sky in a printed magazine is bluer than onscreen.

@moultano This reminds me of my favorite fact: an object appears to be the color it does not absorb.

The visible color is simply a mix of wavelengths that survive the interaction between light, the object, and our eyes

We don’t see an object’s “true” color. We see what it rejects/reflect

@moultano Thank you for this.

@moultano Colospace heads rise up (I’m partial to Munsell)

@moultano @AndyMasley Really great. When I was briefly obsessed with this topic, I was more interested in the colors screens can produce that aren’t possible/common in nature (outside of certain birds and insects). From what I could tell Pointer’s gamut was the last major measurement on that.

@moultano I heard that the fluorescent pigment called Pinkest Pink is also outside of sRGB when mixed and painted. at least, that was the explanation for why I’ve never been able to photograph how bright it is…

@moultano very nice post

@moultano glad to have played a small part in this

@moultano My first thought was of different depths of water giving cyans that are outside the gamut of a monitor. I wonder if i can get them with watercolour paint. (The usual palette of colours I use when painting is missing very saturated magenta)

@moultano sRGB - about 35% of visible colors Display-P3 - about 53% of visible colors Rec. 2020 - about 63% of visible colors

Our portal to the world sRGB only shows us 35% of visible color??

@robotson @moultano wow! i made one of these just by experimenting in ms paint. i didn't even know what i was doing it was just through trial and error.

@moultano So in theory one could create a custom LED display capable of producing a much higher portion of the full gamut? Also that color from actual film can be much more rich than could ever be displayed on current screens? Dangit, I don’t really need another rabbit hole right now… 😄

@moultano Thank you, I do think this is my favourite essay I have read all year.

@moultano @Meaningness

@moultano "Green traffic lights are anti-memetic because you only stare at a traffic light when it’s red."

What. A. Sentence.

@MiugoW @moultano what meaningful definition of an object’s “true” color is not what it reflects? isn’t color itself precisely that interaction between light and our eyes?

@moultano I once got pooped on by an Andean Cock-of-the-Rock