Color measurements may be applied to a variety of industrial applications such as color of paint, textile, paper, fruit, wine, and bird feathers. Avantes has developed a variety of custom probes to meet the specific demands of the color measurement application.
Spectrometers are designed to measure exact wavelengths, and are therefore ideal for color measurements. The human eye has a spectral sensitivity that peaks at around 555 nm, which means that the color green gives an impression of higher brightness than other colors. At 490 nm the sensitivity is only 20% compared to the sensitivity at 555 nm. Furthermore, the human eye can only distinguish about 10 million different colors which is actually quite limited relative to the needs of color measurement applications.
Visible light has a wavelength range of 390-750 nm, so generally color measurement systems are configured to cover the range from 380-780 nm with a spectral resolution of around 5 nm (FWHM).
To facilitate reflective color measurements a reflection probe or integrating sphere is typically required. In either case, a white continuous light source illuminates the surface to be measured and a white reflective standard tile is needed for calibration. Color measurements are manifested in the L*a*b* color model which includes parameters for brightness and hue.
