CMY is the name for a type of colour mixing, used mostly in moving lights and in a few Colour Scrollers. It typically has three discs or scrolls, one each of cyan, magenta and yellow, which move in front of the light path, each with a gradient of colour going from 0% (clear) to 100% (fully saturated). Cyan Magenta Yellow mixing is subtractive, meaning that the components are being subtracted from an originally white source. This is the opposite to Red Green Blue mixing, where the components are coloured and combine to produce a white.

CMY works in line with the focal range of lanterns, careful mathematics will determine the best place to situate the "vanes"(VL) or "flags"(Mac600) within this so will saturate the entire beam without an odd coloured pattern (gobo effect) being produced. They are usually placed away from the focal plane (gate) so are not in focus. The Colormerge by High end systems uses 3 glass dichroic filters, which are used to introduce variable saturation of Cyan, Yellow and Magenta into the beam. They are moved into place to create CMY (subtractive) colour mixing within generic lanterns. These are similar to colour mixing scrollers, but are internal, and although bulky and expensive allow you to alter levels of saturation to create the desired colour more effectively.

See Also

• Colour
• Colour Scroller
• Red Green Blue