Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Approaches to color rendering measurement

Published

Author(s)

Wendy L. Davis, Yoshihiro Ohno

Abstract

Color rendering refers to a light source’s ability to make the colors of illuminated objects appear natural or accurate. The Color Rendering Index (CRI) is currently the only internationally-standardized way to assess a light source’s color rendering abilities. The CRI has shortcomings in application, however, and its problems are pronounced when applied to newer lighting technologies, such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Since the introduction of the CRI to the present day, alternative methods have been proposed and studied. Some methods are based on the shape of the spectral output of the source, considering broadband sources to have better color rendering than sources with spectral peaks or valley. Several proposals share the basic method of CRI, with modifications to improve performance. Still other ideas are based on measures of the gamut area of rendered object colors. The International Commission on Illumination (CIE) is in the process of developing and recommending a new metric of color rendition.
Citation
Journal of Modern Optics
Volume
56
Issue
13

Keywords

colorimetry, color rendering, light-emitting diodes, light sources

Citation

Davis, W. and Ohno, Y. (2009), Approaches to color rendering measurement, Journal of Modern Optics (Accessed April 28, 2024)
Created July 15, 2009, Updated January 9, 2018