Gamut extension for cinema: psychophysical evaluation of the state of the art and a new algorithm

Wide gamut digital display technology, in order to show its full potential in terms of colors, is creating an opportunity to develop gamut extension algorithms (GEAs). To this end, in this work we present two contributions. First we report a psychophysical evaluation of GEAs specifically for cinema using a digital cinema projector under cinematic (low ambient light) conditions; to the best of our knowledge this is the first evaluation of this kind reported in the literature. Second, we propose a new GEA by introducing simple but key modifications to the algorithm of Zamir et al.1 This new algorithm performs well in terms of skin tones and memory colors, with results that look natural and which are free from artifacts.