Purpose: To educate individuals who are new to color science and instrumental color measurement, providing foundational knowledge essential for ensuring brand consistency, maintaining product quality and safety, and achieving compliance with global regulatory standards.
Important Notes:
In this Fundamentals of Color and Appearance video series, we journey from the history of color science, through the science of human color perception, to the modern tools and methods that define color measurement today. Each video includes a downloadable PDF, found at the end of this article.
Module 1: Introduction - What you will learn and why color is important in industry.
Module 2: How We See Color explores the fascinating science behind human color perception—a process that begins with a light source, interacts with an object, and concludes with an observer, known as the Visual Observing Condition
Module 3: Color Attributes and Color Systems examine the key dimensions of color—hue, chroma, and lightness—and how various systems classify and communicate color in scientific and commercial contexts.
Module 4: Color Perception and Communication address the subjectivity of visual color assessment, shaped by individual vocabulary, environmental lighting, and personal differences in vision.
Module 5: Instrumental Color Measurement introduces the science of color spectrophotometry and explains how instruments replicate the human eye’s response using standardized lighting and controlled viewing geometry.
Module 6: Light, Illuminant, Observer you’ll learn the difference between a physical light source and a standard illuminant, the importance of standard observers, and how a spectral power distribution curve defines light uniquely.
Module 7: Color Scales and Color Differences we explore the Opponent-Color Theory, delve into symmetric and asymmetric color difference calculations, and show how to apply them to define minimal perceptible and maximum acceptable tolerances for color QC of your products.
Module 8: Instrument Geometry examines the differences between diffuse and directional geometries—how they are designed, how they function, and their intended applications. We explore specular included (SPIN) vs. specular excluded (SPEX) modes, and how these affect the evaluation of color versus color appearance.
Module 9: Haze, Turbidity, Opalescence explains on how these optical indices are used to measure how light passes through a transparent or translucent sample and the visual effects of light scatter.
Module 10: Color vs. Appearance explores the Laws of Reflectance and how surface characteristics—such as texture, gloss, and smoothness—influence how our eyes perceive color.
Module 11: Fluorescence covers how Fluorescing Whitening Agents (FWAs) and Optical Brightening Agents (OBAs) are used to enhance the perceived whiteness and brightness of materials, and must be accounted for in color measurement, critical in textiles, paper, plastics, detergents and safety products.
Module 12: Targets and Tolerances explain how to set color targets and tolerances that balance visual acceptance with precise instrumental measurement to ensure consistent, reliable quality.
Learn more in these educational videos:
Don't forget to download the accompanying PDFs for each video!
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