To be precise, the gamut of colors you can produce depends on the choice of red, green, and blue you start with, and if the starting points won't let you create every possible color, you can expand the gamut by adding more colors, like yellow, cyan, and magenta. The concept of additive color allows that the three primary colors of red, green, and blue (for which the human eye has receptors) can be mixed to create all other visible colors, including white and the secondary colors magenta, cyan, and yellow. You only have to mix these three primary colors in the right proportions. Namely, if you're working with light, you need only three primary colors-red, green, and blue-to produce every color the human eye can see. So before we look at today's most common projection light sources-lamp, laser, and LED-and which might be best for your needs, let's start by talking about imaging.Īll color displays, including projectors, are built around a core observation of how the human visual system perceives color. The two interact in such a way that to fully understand your choices for the light source, you also have to know a little about the imaging technology it's paired with, and how imaging technologies work in general. At the heart of every projector are two essentials: the imaging technology and the light source.