A method for selecting display primaries to match a target color gamut

— A method for selecting primaries of a wide‐gamut display is proposed, in which display color gamut is designed to match a target color gamut in CIELAB color space. A standard deviation of the relative maximum chroma of display and target color gamuts is defined. The selection method optimizes display primaries for the minimum standard deviation so that display and target color gamuts are similar in shape. It is shown that the color gamut of a laser display designed by this method is similar in shape to the theoretical maximum, or optimal, color gamut of objects. It is also shown that the color gamut of an LED display can be designed to include 99.7% of the gamut of Pointer's real‐world surface colors. LED primaries are selected to minimize the standard deviation of the relative maximum chroma of effective display color gamut and a target color gamut which is defined to include Pointer's real‐world surface colors. For both the laser and LED displays, it is necessary to constrain the red‐primary wavelength to avoid excessive optical power for the red primary.