A method of illuminating a display includes spatially varying the luminance of a multi-colored light source illuminating a plurality of pixels of the display in response to receiving a plurality of pixel values, and varying the transmittance of a light valve of the display having filters corresponding to the multi-colored light source in response to receiving the plurality of pixel values. The illumination is modified for a plurality of pixel values based upon modification of the luminance of the light source and varying the transmittance of the light valve. The modifying is further based upon modification of at least one of the multi-colored light sources together with modification of the transmittance of the light valve corresponding to at least one of the filters of a different color than the at least one of the multi-colored light sources in such a manner that increases the color gamut of the display.