Textile Color Matching Solutions

A variety of situations that affect the appearance of the colors includes different source of lights, perception of different observers, the size of the product, background color and the angle of observance. From this context, it is concluded that three components affect the color of a product which includes vision, object, and light. If any of the mentioned component changes, the color also changes. Hence, it is important to keep keen attention on these elements while measuring the quality of the products.

It is quite difficult to evaluate actual colors under different sources of light, and there are many possibilities of color deviations without using standard light sources. To stimulate different light sources to attain exact color, we can make use of textile color matching devices. These devices help to see the exact colors and ensure the color consistency of textile products.

Problem of Metamerism in Textiles 

The phenomenon of Metamerism in textile explains that two objects appear same under single light source and changes when observed under a different source of light. This happens due to the difference in the materials or pigments. This occurs when the spectral reflectance characteristics of the colors in two various types of products is different. To solve the problem of metamerism, we need to understand the color model thoroughly.

What is a color model?

Every color has different color space which can easily find out using color formulas by the color measuring instruments. These formulas and spaces work on the basis of three fundamental aspects namely, chroma, lightness, and hue. 

• Lightness – Lightness in color model explains whether the color is bright, light, or dark. It emphasizes the brightness of the color which changes when the sample is rotated to a different angle, and it is depicted in L axis of the color It indicates the depth of a color which ranges from white and black with the various shades of gray in between. The best way to depict the depth of colors is determining the lightness of the color.

• Chroma or Saturation – The chroma in color model explains the dull colors, vivid colors, etc. If the color is described as the outside margin of chroma, it will be observed to be very clean and bright. As it moves towards the L axis where the lightness is measured, it will become grayer and flatter.

• Hue – The Hue in a color model explains different shades such as red, green, yellow, blue for the wheel of color. This shows big variation in colors. For example, if a blue color becomes very red it will move towards purple color and will appear in the blue portion but on the red side. Also, different shades of blues would appear in the blue color space but at different places. This is how the hue component of color model works.

Textile color matching in textile industries is done on the basis of these three elements Lightness, Chroma, and Hue. Nowadays, it is very simple to measure all these components of textile colors using highly efficient spectrophotometers. For more information, visit: www.testronixinstruments.com/