RGB Color Model
RGB Color Model
RGB is a device-dependent color model: different devices detect or reproduce a given RGB value differently, since the color elements (such as phosphors or dyes) and their response to the individual R, G, and B levels vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, or even in the same device over time. Thus an RGB value does not define the same color across devices without some kind of color management. Typical RGB input devices are color TV and video cameras, image scanners, and digital cameras. Typical RGB output devices are TV sets of various technologies (CRT, LCD, plasma, etc.), computer and mobile phone displays, video projectors, multicolor LED displays, and large screens such as JumboTron. Color printers, on the other hand, are not RGB devices, but subtractive color devices (typically CMYK color model). This article discusses concepts common to all the different color spaces that use the RGB color model, which are used in one implementation or another in color image-producing technology.
A representation of additive color mixing. Projection of primary color lights on a screen shows secondary colors where two overlap; the combination of all three of red, green, and blue in appropriate intensities makes white.
RGB color model intensity: cyan is green+blue, magenta is red+blue, and yellow is red+green. Every secondary color is the complement of one primary color; when a primary and its complementary secondary color are added together, the result is white: cyan complements red, magenta complements green, and yellow complements blue. The RGB color model itself does not define what is meant by red, green, and blue colorimetrically, and so the results of mixing them are not specified as absolute, but relative to the primary colors. When the exact chromaticities of the red, green, and blue primaries are defined, the color model then becomes an absolute color space, such as sRGB or Adobe RGB; see RGB color spaces for more details.
Use of the three primary colors is not sufficient to reproduce all colors; only colors within the color triangle defined by the chromaticities of the primaries can be reproduced by additive mixing of non-negative amounts of those colors of light.[]
The first permanent color photograph, taken by J.C. Maxwell in 1861 using three filters, specifically red, green, and violet-blue.
A photograph of Mohammed Alim Khan (18801944), Emir of Bukhara, taken in 1911 by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii using three exposures with red, green, and blue filters.
Photography
First experiments with RGB in early color photography were made in 1861 by Maxwell himself, and involved the process of three color-filtered separate takes.[3] To reproduce the color photograph, three matching projections over a screen in a dark room were necessary. The additive RGB model and variants such as orangegreenviolet were also used in the Autochrome Lumire color plates and other screen-plate technologies such as the Joly color screen and the Paget process in the early twentieth century. Color photography by taking three separate plates was used by other pioneers, such as Russian Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky in the period 1909 through 1915.[4] Such methods last until about 1960 using the expensive and extremely complex tri-color carbro Autotype process.[5]
RGB color model When employed, the reproduction of prints from three-plate photos was done by dyes or pigments using the complementary CMY model, by simply using the negative plates of the filtered takes: reverse red gives the cyan plate, and so on.
Television
Before the development of practical electronic TV, there were patents on mechanically scanned color systems as early as 1889 in Russia. The color TV pioneer John Logie Baird demonstrated the world's first RGB color transmission in 1928, and also the world's first color broadcast in 1938, in London. In his experiments, scanning and display were done mechanically by spinning colorized wheels.[6][7] The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) began an experimental RGB field-sequential color system in 1940. Images were scanned electrically, but the system still used a moving part: the transparent RGB color wheel rotating at above 1,200 rpm in synchronism with the vertical scan. The camera and the cathode-ray tube (CRT) were both monochromatic. Color was provided by color wheels in the camera and the receiver.[8][9][10] More recently, color wheels have been used in field-sequential projection TV receivers based on the Texas Instruments monochrome DLP imager. The modern RGB shadow mask technology for color CRT displays was patented by Werner Flechsig in Germany in 1938.[11]
Personal computers
Early personal computers of the late 1970s and early 1980s, such as those from Apple, Atari and Commodore, did not use RGB as their main method to manage colors, but rather composite video. IBM introduced a 16-color scheme (one bit each for RGB and Intensity) with the Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) for its first IBM PC (1981), later improved with the Enhanced Graphics Adapter (EGA) in 1984. The first manufacturer of a truecolor graphic card for PCs (the TARGA) was Truevision in 1987, but it was not until the arrival of the Video Graphics Array (VGA) in 1987 that RGB became popular, mainly due to the analog signals in the connection between the adapter and the monitor which allowed a very wide range of RGB colors.
RGB devices
RGB and displays
One common application of the RGB color model is the display of colors on a cathode ray tube (CRT), liquid crystal display (LCD), plasma display, or organic light emitting diode (OLED) display such as a television, a computers monitor, or a large scale screen. Each pixel on the screen is built by driving three small and very close but still separated RGB light sources. At common viewing distance, the separate sources are indistinguishable, which tricks the eye to see a given solid color. All the pixels together arranged in the rectangular screen surface conforms the color image. During digital image processing each pixel can be represented in the computer memory or interface hardware (for example, a graphics card) as binary values for the red, green, and blue color components. When properly managed, these values are converted into intensities or voltages via gamma correction to correct the inherent nonlinearity of some devices, such that the intended intensities are reproduced on the display. The Quattron released by Sharp uses RGB color and adds yellow as a sub-pixel, supposedly allowing an increase in the number of available colors. Video electronics RGB is also the term referring to a type of component video signal used in the video electronics industry. It consists of three signalsred, green, and bluecarried RGB phosphor dots in a CRT monitor on three separate cables/pins. RGB signal formats are often based on modified versions of the RS-170 and RS-343 standards for monochrome video. This type of video signal is widely used in Europe since it is the best quality signal that can be carried on the standard SCART connector.[citation needed] This signal is known as RGBS (4 BNC/RCA terminated cables exist as well), but it's not directly compatible with RGBHV used for computer monitors (usually carried on 15-pin cables terminated with 15-pin D-sub or 5 BNC connectors), which carries separate horizontal and vertical sync signals.
Cutaway rendering of a color CRT: 1.Electron guns 2.Electron beams 3.Focusing coils 4.Deflection coils 5.Anode connection 6.Mask for separating beams for red, green, and blue part of displayed image 7.Phosphor layer with red, green, and blue zones 8.Close-up of the phosphor-coated inner side of the screen
Outside Europe, RGB is not very popular as a video signal format; S-Video takes that spot in most non-European regions. However, almost all computer monitors around the world use RGB. Video framebuffer A framebuffer is a digital device for computers which stores data in the so-called video memory (comprising an array of Video RAM or similar chips). This data goes either to three digital-to-analog converters (DACs) (for analog monitors), one per primary color, or directly to digital monitors. Driven by software, the CPU (or other specialized chips) write the appropriate bytes into RGB sub-pixels in an LCD TV (on the right: an orange and a blue the video memory to define the image. Modern systems color; on the left: a close-up) encode pixel color values by devoting eight bits to each of the R, G, and B components. RGB information can be either carried directly by the pixel bits themselves, or provided by a separate color look-up table (CLUT) if indexed color graphic modes are used. A CLUT is a specialized RAM that stores R, G, and B values that define specific colors. Each color has its own address (index)consider it as a descriptive reference number that provides that specific color when the image needs it. The content of the CLUT is much like a palette of colors. Image data that uses indexed color specifies addresses within the CLUT to provide the required R, G, and B values for each specific pixel, one pixel at a time. Of course, before displaying, the CLUT has to be loaded with R, G, and B values that define the palette of colors required for each image to be rendered. This indirect scheme restricts the number of available colors in an image (typically 256), although each color in the table has typically 8 bits for each of the R, G, and B primaries. This means that any given color can be one of approx. 16.7 million possible colors. However, the advantage is that an indexed-color image file can be significantly smaller than it would be with 8 bits per pixel for each primary. Modern storage, however, is far less costly, greatly reducing the need to minimize image file size. By using an appropriate combination of red, green, and blue intensities, many colors can be displayed. Current typical display adapters use up to 24-bits of information for each pixel: 8-bit per component multiplied by three components (see the Digital representations section below). With this system, 16,777,216 (2563 or 224) discrete combinations of R, G and B values are allowed, providing millions of different (though not necessarily distinguishable) hue, saturation, and lightness shades. For images with a modest range of brightnesses from the darkest to the lightest, eight bits per primary color provides good-quality images, but extreme images require more bits per primary color as well as advanced display technology. For more information see High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging. Nonlinearity In classic cathode ray tube (CRT) devices, the brightness of a given point over the fluorescent screen due to the impact of accelerated electrons is not proportional to the voltages applied to the electron gun control grids, but to an expansive function of that voltage. The amount of this deviation is known as its gamma value ( ), the argument for a power law function, which closely describes this behaviour. A linear response is given by a gamma value of 1.0, but actual CRT nonlinearities have a gamma value around 2.0 to 2.5. Similarly, the intensity of the output on TV and computer display devices is not directly proportional to the R, G, and B applied electric signals (or file data values which drive them through Digital-to-Analog Converters). On a typical
RGB color model standard 2.2-gamma CRT display, an input intensity RGB value of (0.5,0.5,0.5) only outputs about 22% of full brightness (1.0,1.0,1.0), instead of 50%.[12] To obtain the correct response, a gamma correction is used in encoding the image data, and possibly further corrections as part of the color calibration process of the device. Gamma affects black-and-white TV as well as color. In standard color TV, broadcast signals are gamma corrected. Display technologies different from CRTs, such as LCD, plasma, LED, etc. may behave nonlinearly in different ways. When they are intended to display standard TV and video, their gamma is set equivalent to a CRT TV monitor. In digital image processing, gamma correction can be applied either by the hardware or by the software packages used. Other input/output RGB devices may also have nonlinear responses, depending on the technology employed. In any case, nonlinearity (whether gamma-related or not) is not part of the RGB color model in itself, although different standards that use RGB can also specify the gamma value and/or other nonlinear parameters involved.
Numeric representations
A color in the RGB color model is described by indicating how much of each of the red, green, and blue is included. The color is expressed as an RGB triplet (r,g,b), each component of which can vary from zero to a defined maximum value. If all the components are at zero the result is black; if all are at maximum, the result is the brightest representable white. These ranges may be quantified in several different ways: From 0 to 1, with any fractional value in between. This representation is used in theoretical analyses, and in systems that use floating point representations. Each color component value can also be written as a percentage, from 0% to 100%. In computers, the component values are often stored as integer numbers in the range 0 to 255, the range that a single 8-bit byte can offer. These are often represented as either decimal or hexadecimal numbers. High-end digital image equipment are often able to deal with larger integer ranges for each primary color, such as 0..1023 (10 bits), 0..65535 (16 bits) or even larger, by extending the 24-bits (three 8-bit values) to 32-bit, 48-bit, or 64-bit units (more or less independent from the particular computer's word size). For example, brightest saturated red is written in the different RGB notations as:
Notation Arithmetic Percentage Digital 8-bit per channel RGB triplet (1.0, 0.0, 0.0) (100%, 0%, 0%) (255, 0, 0) or sometimes #FF0000 (hexadecimal)
A typical RGB color selector in graphic software. Each slider ranges from 0 to 255.
In many environments, the component values within the ranges are not managed as linear (that is, the numbers are nonlinearly related to the intensities that they represent), as in digital cameras and TV broadcasting and receiving due to gamma correction, for example.[13] Linear and nonlinear transformations are often dealt with via digital image processing. Representations with only 8 bits per component are considered sufficient if gamma encoding is used.[14]
Color depth
The RGB color model is the most common way to encode color in computing, and several different binary digital representations are in use. The main characteristic of all of them is the quantization of the possible values per component (technically a Sample (signal) ) by using only integer numbers within some range, usually from 0 to some power of two minus one (2n1) to fit them into some bit groupings. Encodings of 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, and 16 bits per color are commonly found; the total number of bits used for an RGB color is typically called the color depth.
Geometric representation
See also RGB color space Since colors are usually defined by three components, not only in the RGB model, but also in other color models such as CIELAB and Y'UV, among others, then a three-dimensional volume is described by treating the component values as ordinary cartesian coordinates in a euclidean space. For the RGB model, this is represented by a cube using non-negative values within a 01 range, assigning black to the origin at the vertex (0, 0, 0), and with increasing intensity values running along the three axes up to white at the vertex (1, 1, 1), diagonally opposite black. An RGB triplet (r,g,b) represents the three-dimensional coordinate of the point of the given color within the cube or its faces or along its edges. This approach allows computations of the color similarity of two given RGB colors by simply calculating the distance between them: the shorter the distance, the higher the similarity. Out-of-gamut computations can also be performed this way.
The RGB color model mapped to a cube. The horizontal x-axis as red values increasing to the left, y-axis as blue increasing to the lower right and the vertical z-axis as green increasing towards the top. The origin, black, is the vertex hidden from view.
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Color management
Proper reproduction of colors, especially in professional environments, requires color management of all the devices involved in the production process, many of them using RGB. Color management results in several transparent conversions between device-independent and device-dependent color spaces (RGB and others, as CMYK for color printing) during a typical production cycle, in order to ensure color consistency throughout the process. Along with the creative processing, such interventions on digital images can damage the color accuracy and image detail, especially where the gamut is reduced. Professional digital devices and software tools allow for 48 bpp (bits per pixel) images to be manipulated (16 bits per channel), to minimize any such damage.
RGB color model ICC-compliant applications, such as Adobe Photoshop, use either the Lab color space or the CIE 1931 color space as a Profile Connection Space when translating between color spaces.[17]
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References
[4] Photographer to the Tsar: Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii (http:/ / www. loc. gov/ exhibits/ empire/ gorskii. html) Library of Congress. [6] John Logie Baird, Television Apparatus and the Like (http:/ / www. google. com/ patents?id=JRVAAAAAEBAJ), U.S. patent, filed in U.K. in 1928. [7] Baird Television: Crystal Palace Television Studios (http:/ / www. bairdtelevision. com/ crystalpalace. html). Previous color television demonstrations in the U.K. and U.S. had been via closed circuit. [9] " CBS Demonstrates Full Color Television (http:/ / pqasb. pqarchiver. com/ wsj/ access/ 107348215. html?dids=107348215:107348215& FMT=ABS& FMTS=ABS:AI& date=Sep+ 5,+ 1940)," Wall Street Journal, Sept. 5, 1940, p. 1. [15] http:/ / xona. com/ colorlist/ [16] http:/ / www. w3. org/ TR/ REC-html32
External links
Demonstrative color conversion applet (http://www.cs.rit.edu/~ncs/color/a_spaces.html)
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License
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/