Optimizing Color Grading with the Gamut Rings Color Scope

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Publisher: SMPTE — Pasadena, CA
Doc Type: Conference Paper
Content Type: Original Research
Volume: 00, pp. 1–9
Abstract: Traditional color scopes provide limited insight into perceptual attributes of color, particularly lightness, chroma, and hue angle. To address this limitation, the Gamut Rings Color Scope offers a novel 2D visualization that simultaneously represents these three perceptual dimensions. This intuitive layout enhances the understanding of color distributions in a wide variety of image types. This paper presents a real-time software implementation of the Gamut Rings Color Scope optimized for HD video signals. The scope operates in the D65 CIELAB space to match standard video viewing conditions and employs a lookup table (LUT) for efficient mapping of input signals. Core components of the implementation include gamut boundary computation, chroma stabilization, rasterization, and index-based mapping. Comparative evaluations show how the Gamut Rings Color Scope better reveals perceptual features—such as in mid-tone gradations, hue shifts, and gamut violations—than traditional vectorscopes and chromaticity scopes. These comparisons underscore the unique advantages of the ring-based display for analyzing tone mapping, saturation changes, and high-dynamic-range (HDR) rendering behavior. By integrating the Gamut Rings Color Scope into grading workflows, colorists can gain a unified, perceptually meaningful view of color structure enabling more informed and communicative color decisions.
Publication Date: 2025-10-13
ISBN: Electronic: 978-1-61482-966-9
Author(s): Kenichiro Masaoka
Keyword(s): Color Gamut, Gamut Rings, Color Scope, Color Grading, Color Correction
Copyright: © 2025 SMPTE

Bibliographic Reference(s)

Gamut Excursion Measurements (GEM)—Improving CIE Usage [Active]
CIE.246.2021 — CIE 246:2021, Colour Gamuts for Output Media. EXTERNAL
IEC.62977-2-1.2022 — IEC 62977–2-1:2022, Electronic Displays - Part 2-1: Measurements of Optical Characteristics. EXTERNAL
IEC.62977-3-5.2023 — IEC 62977–3-5:2023, Evaluation of Optical Performance - Colour Capabilities. EXTERNAL
K. Masaoka, “New color metrology content in IDMS v1.1,” Inf. Disp., 37(6), 33–37, 2021. doi: 10.1002/msid.1259. EXTERNAL
K. Masaoka, “Gamut rings color scope,” Inf. Disp., 40(1),30–34, 2024. doi: 10.1002/msid.1456. EXTERNAL
International Committee for Display Metrology, Information Display Measurements Standard v1.3, Society for Information Display, 2025. EXTERNAL
K. Masaoka, F. Jiang, M. D. Fairchild, and R. L. Heckaman, “2D representation of display color gamut,” SID Symp. Dig. Tech. Pap., 49(1),1048–1051, 2018. doi: 10.1002/sdtp.12187. EXTERNAL

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<span class="citation">Kenichiro Masaoka; <cite>Optimizing Color Grading with the Gamut Rings Color Scope</cite>, MTS 2025, Article 5 (pp. 1 to 9); SMPTE, 2025, ISBN: 978-1-61482-966-9</span>

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