Abstract: A light valve system adapted to recycle light reflected from the light valve in order to improve the brightness of the image. Illustratively, this reflected light is the dark-state light of an image. For example, a light valve is optically coupled to a polarization or TIR discriminator; and a light recycling device selectively alters the polarization state of light reflected by the polarization discriminator back into the system, and the reflected light is transmitted to an imaging surface increasing the image brightness.