Relative 'Gel Colors' for Various Selador Fixtures

What you're really after is the "Colour Gamut" of the fixtures.

Ion shows this is shown in the Ion colour picker as a black line, so you can compare it and see how this gamut varies between different fixtures.

The gel matching is done mathematically based on precise measurements of the gel transmission and the colour the individual LEDs used in these luminaires.

Not all gels and luminaires have been measured, so some gels can't be picked and some fixtures do not show a gamut line.

Actually, I'm not sure that a *color gamut* for each color mix would be helpful, nor would a list of "possible" gel colors. I'll explain why, using the most extreme example.

The Fire mix contains some indigo LEDs in addition to all the warm colors. Ice contains red along with the cool colors. And both mixes contain green emitters. This means that both of these specialized fixtures actually have quite a large gamut of "possible" colors. The thing that matters is how bright they are across their gamuts.

You are correct that Fire is best suited for bright reds, oranges, yellows, straws, etc., and even pinks and magentas. What may not be obvious is that it can also do lavenders, purples, greens, aquas, and deep blues -- just at a MUCH lower brightness level. 

Ice is the opposite. It's amazingly bright in all blue, turquoise, purple, steel-blue, and lavender colors, but it can also do reds, oranges, and greens. Again, though, those non-Ice-like colors are significantly less bright than what the fixture was made to do best.

With Vivid / Vivid-R and Lustr / Lustr+, the distinction is a little less intuitive. Vivid and Lustr have basically identical color gamuts. However, they are different in an important way. Vivid was made to do best in saturated colors. It contains more red, red-orange, blue, and indigo LEDs and fewer greens. This gives it a lot of punch in the saturated colors that are most commonly used. With all emitters on at full, the resulting color mix is quite pink.

Lustr is balanced more toward white when all LEDs are at full. It has fewer reds and blues in the LED array and more green and cyan to help it perform better in pastels or white mixes. Lustr can do all the same saturated colors as Vivid, but it is not as punchy in the red-magenta-blue range of deep colors.

If you want very bright reds and blues, use Vivid. If you want a broad-range of color options but plan to use the fixtures primarily for less-saturated tints and whites, use Lustr.

In a nutshell:

-- Vivid is what you want for a cyc.

-- Lustr is better for lighting most or all of the downstage areas.

-- Use Fire and Ice when you know that the fixtures will be used in only a very constrained way (more commonly seen in architectural installations than in theatre work).

Some users like to put a combination of both Fire and Ice as downlight on acting areas. That works well for deeply colored toplight / backlight. Vivid would also be a good option for this, but most often users like the flexibility of Lustr overhead for its supremacy in light tones.

Does this help?

Forgot to explain Paletta.

It works very much like Lustr in its color-mix capabilities. The fixture is smaller. It contains less heat-dissipating surface area, which reduces the cost by quite a bit. It is just not as bright as Lustr. It's a great option for smaller-scale spaces or when budget is a more limiting constraint.

And the bottom line is two related issues.

If designing as a new event, the LD may well scrap the whole concept of matching to known Lee, Apollo or Rosco colors and simply mix to the eye.  Often a good LD will take the time to establish useful color palettes as a starting point.and work from that.  They essentially do this now with CMY/CYM movers that replace standard S4's in FOH and tops.  

Or the ballet tour rolls in and the visiting LD, who's replicating a plot that had L201, L119 and L124 in a cyc,  has now been seeing enough LED cyc units in the larger houses, that they know they have to do a cue-to-cue and set cyc levels based on what it's supposed to look like, maybe from memory, maybe they took a photo.  I asked a Russian LD about this and she stated she's used to doing it now by eye when she hits a space with LED's.  Takes a little longer but she OK as she's no longer limited by what the old crappy incandescent fixture is in a road house.