Color science

Color Science is a multidiscipline field of study that encompasses principles of illumination, optics, color vision physiology, psychophysics, and color reproduction into a single discipline. Color Science studies the basics of light and its interaction with objects that generate color and the way the human visual system detects this. It includes research on the wavelength of light, mechanisms of color vision in the eye, and psychological factors in color perception. It builds from classical color theory toward principles that incorporate the knowledge of the physical and the life sciences. Sir Isaac Newton established the notion of colors as the perception of light rather than the absolute wavelength of light. This marks the birth of color science. This has, for a long time, shown that color is subjective and dependent on circumstances across several scientific fields. Color Science goes beyond the theoretical realm. It is a science that lies at the core of digital imaging, printing, design, and visual arts, where the correct reproduction of color is essential. The sciences of principles in color science enable accurate color matching and calibration of displays and printers to make designs visually effective and striking.

Organizations

• International Commission on Illumination (CIE)
• Illuminating Engineering Society (IES)
• Inter-Society Color Council (ISCC)
• Society for Imaging Science and Technology (IS&T)
• International Colour Association (AIC)
• Optica, formerly the Optical Society of America (OSA)
• The Colour Group
• Society of Dyers and Colourists (SDC)
• American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC)
• Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO)
• ACM SIGGRAPH
• Vision Sciences Society (VSS)
• Council for Optical Radiation Measurements (CORM)

Journals

The preeminent scholarly journal publishing research papers in color science is Color Research and Application, started in 1975 by founding editor-in-chief Fred Billmeyer, along with Gunter Wyszecki, Michael Pointer and Rolf Kuehni, as a successor to the Journal of Colour (1964–1974). Previously most color science work had been split between journals with broader or partially overlapping focus such as the Journal of the Optical Society of America (JOSA), Photographic Science and Engineering (1957–1984), and the Journal of the Society of Dyers and Colourists (renamed Coloration Technology in 2001).

Other journals where color science papers are published include the Journal of Imaging Science & Technology, the Journal of Perceptual Imaging, the Journal of the International Colour Association (JAIC), the Journal of the Color Science Association of Japan, Applied Optics, and the Journal of Vision.

Conferences

• Congress of the International Color Association
• IS&T Color and Imaging Conference (CIC)
• SIGGRAPH
• International Symposium for Color Science and Art

Selected books

• Berns, Roy S. (2019). Billmeyer and Saltzman's Principles of Color Technology (4th ed.). Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781119367314. 3rd ed. (2000).
• Daw, Nigel (2012). How Vision Works: The Physiological Mechanisms Behind What We See. Oxford. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199751617.001.0001.
• Elliot, Andrew J.; Fairchild, Mark D.; Franklin, Anna, eds. (2015). Handbook of Color Psychology. Cambridge. doi:10.1017/CBO9781107337930.
• Fairchild, Mark D. (2013). Color Appearance Models (3rd ed.). Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781118653128. Author's website. 2nd ed. (2005).
• Hunt, Robert W. G. (2004). The Reproduction of Colour (6th ed.). Wiley. doi:10.1002/0470024275.
• Kuehni, Rolf G. (2012). Color: An Introduction to Practice and Principles (3rd ed.). Wiley. doi:10.1002/9781118533567. 1st ed. (1997).
• Luo, Ming R., ed. (2016). Encyclopedia of Color Science and Technology. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-8071-7.
• MacAdam, David L., ed. (1970). Sources of Color Science. MIT Press.
• Reinhard, Erik; Khan, Erum Arif; Akyuz, Ahmet Oguz; Johnson, Garrett (2008). Color Imaging: Fundamentals and Applications. CRC Press. doi:10.1201/b10637.
• Schanda, János, ed. (2007). Colorimetry: Understanding the CIE System. Wiley. doi:10.1002/9780470175637.
• Shamey, Renzo; Kuehni, Rolf G. (2020). Pioneers of Color Science. Springer. doi:10.1007/978-3-319-30811-1.
• Wyszecki, Günter; Stiles, Walter S. (1982). Color Science: Concepts and Methods, Quantitative Data and Formulae (2nd ed.). Wiley.