Your phone screen doesn’t have the same color range as the human eye – and AI widens the gap between digital images and the real thing

A photographer describes how your phone camera flattens and dulls the colors in photos – and how to regain an appreciation for the wide spectrum of colors.

By: Douglas Goodwin, University of California, Los Angeles; California Institute of the Arts, The Conversation

Outlets: The Conversation

Published: June 1, 2026

Words: 1,382

Last Updated: 1 month, 3 weeks ago

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By Douglas Goodwin, University of California, Los Angeles; California Institute of the Arts

A peacock feather in sunlight shifts from blue to green to bronze as you turn it. Photograph it, and this shimmer collapses into one angle, one exposure, one compromise.

A digital image is not a record of what your eye sees. The standard color space that most digital images use was built for an older display world, when cathode-ray tube …

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