Color spaces (was DEC Colours)

From: der Mouse <mouse_at_Rodents.Montreal.QC.CA>
Date: Tue Nov 16 23:22:43 2004

> So if you're trying to match paint - a 'reflective' specification
> would be the most accurate, I would think.

But not one as simple as CMYK.

Quite aside from the ways our eyes respond to light, in order to truly
match a given colour, you do need to match its reflectance spectrum at
least moderately well, otherwise the goodness of your match will depend
on the spectrum of the light you look at it under. (Just because two
lights look the same to your eyes does not mean they have even
approximately the same spectra! It just means that their spectra
dot-producted with your eyes' colour receptors' sensitivity spectra
come out fairly close to the same. Or whatever the term corresponding
to integral[x](A(x)*B(x)), the continuous analog of a dot product, is;
I can't remember offhand.)

And then there are issues of specularity and translucency and such.

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Received on Tue Nov 16 2004 - 23:22:43 GMT