About Color Systems

When working with color images, the most common color system used is called RGB (Red-Green-Blue). This is a widely used additive color system found in computer monitors, LED walls and other human interfaces. The RGB color system produces the widest gamut of colors but does not work well for gobos. However, in the printing and gobo industries the CMYK (Cyan-Magenta-Yellow-Key/Black) color system is the process of choice, although the color range is narrower than the RGB system, the CMYK system is used because the subtractive color properties works better with a white light source that’s in your gobo projector.

Most graphics designers use the PMS or Pantone color matching system when designing logos. These colors are also known as "spot" colors because they are specifically mixed to produce a certain color. Although you can simulate CMYK values to these colors, they will not reproduce exactly the same.

InLight Gobos uses the CMYK color system to create full color gobos. Our process of making full color gobos produces colors very close to RGB and PMS colors, but since they have to be transformed into CMYK some of the colors can become paler due to CMYK's smaller color range. When producing many copies of the same image, small variations in color can also occur between the copies.