Image processing in biomedical research has become customary, along with use of colour displays to run image processing packages. The performance of softwares is highly dependent on the device they run on: architecture of colour display, depth of frame buffer, existence of look-up table, etc. Knowledge of such basic features is therefore becoming very important, especially because results can differ from device to device. This introductory paper discusses hardware features and software applications. A general architecture of colour displays is exposed, comparing the features of the most commonly used devices. Basic organisation of memory, electron gun and screen are analysed for each type of display, concluding with a more detailed study of raster scan devices. Frame buffer and look-up table organisation are then analysed in relation with overhead expenses such as time and memory. Relation between image data and displayed images is discussed. By means of examples, the manipulation of colour tables is examined in detail, showing how to improve display of images without altering image data. Finally, the basic operations performed by the look-up table editor developed at University of Geneva are presented.