New inorganic pigments with intense and saturated colorations have been prepared by solid state route and exhibit a large color scale from magenta to yellow. Indeed, yellow and magenta are two of the three subtractive model's colors with wide application in printing or displays as e-book readers. To develop yellow and magenta hue, we focused on cobalt and nickel-based orthophosphates thanks to chemical stability, low density, low price and easypreparation of such pigment class. All these orthophosphates crystallize with the well-known olivine-type structure (Pnma orthorhombic space group) where transition metals are stabilized in a distorted octahedral site. This paper deals with the optical absorption properties of various orthophosphates, the correlations with structural features and their colorimetric parameters (in L*a*b* color space). The LiCo1-xMgxPO4 series show near-magenta color with tunable luminosity while LiNiPO4 compound exhibits a frank yellow coloration. Co 2+ ( 4 T1) and Ni 2+ ( 4 A2) chromophore ions occupy a more or less distorted octahedral site, leading to tune the intensity of d-d electronic transitions in the visible and NIR range and provide a

Blue cobalt inorganic pigments with spinel-type structure have been revisited in order to understand the origin of blackening at low temperatures and to design strong blue nanosized materials.