Fundamentals of color

Abstract

Color is an important feature in visual information reaching the human eye or an artificial visual system. The color information is based on the electromagnetic (EM) radiation reflected, transmitted, or irradiated by an object to be observed. Distribution of this radiation intensity is represented as a wavelength spectrum. In the standard approach, color is seen as human sensation to this spectrum on the wavelength range 380-780 nm. A more general approach is to manage color as color information carried by the EM radiation. This modern approach is not restricted to the limitations of human vision. The color can be managed, not only in a traditional three-dimensional space like RGB or L∗a∗b∗ but also in an n-dimensional spectral space. In this chapter, we describe the basis for both approaches and discuss some fundamental questions in color science.