The theory and experiments for a multichannel optical system for pseudocolor encoding of images are presented. Spatial-frequency pseudocolor encoding is accomplished by spatial filtering different-colored spectra in different channels. Density pseudocolor encoding is accomplished by the incoherent addition of three primary color images: a contrast-reversal image in one color, a positive image in the second color, and a contrast half-reversal image in the third color. This is a simple, real-rime'technique. It has no resolution loss that is due to the use of gratings or halftone screens, and the optical system does not require Fourier-transform lenses with large relative apertures.