“A curator, a paintings conservator, a photographer, and a conservation scientist walk into a bar.” What happens next? In lively and accessible prose, color science expert Roy S. Berns helps the reader understand complex color-technology concepts and offers solutions to problems that occur when art is displayed, conserved, imaged, or reproduced. Berns writes for two types of audiences: museum professionals seeking explanations for common color-related issues and students in conservation, museum studies, and art history programs. The seven chapters in the book fall naturally into two sections: fundamentals, covering topics such as spectral measurements, metamerism, and color inconstancy; and applications, where artwork display, painting materials, and color reproduction are discussed. A unique feature of this book is the use of more than 200 images as its main medium of communication, employing color physics, color vision, and imaging science to produce visualizations throughout the pages. An annotated bibliography complements the main text with suggestions for further reading and more in-depth study of particular topics. Engaging, incisive, and absolutely critical for any scholar or student interested in color science, Color Science and the Visual Arts is sure to become a key reference for the entire field.

A comprehensive introduction to colorimetry from a conceptual perspective. Color for the Sciences is the first book on colorimetry to offer an account that emphasizes conceptual and formal issues rather than applications. Jan Koenderink's introductory text treats colorimetry—literally, “color measurement”—as a science, freeing the topic from the usual fixation on conventional praxis and how to get the “right” result. Readers of Color for the Sciences will learn to rethink concepts from the roots in order to reach a broader, conceptual understanding. After a brief account of the history of the discipline (beginning with Isaac Newton) and a chapter titled “Colorimetry for Dummies,” the heart of the book covers the main topics in colorimetry, including the space of beams, achromatic beams, edge colors, optimum colors, color atlases, and spectra. Other chapters cover more specialized topics, including implementations, metrics pioneered by Schrödinger and Helmholtz, and extended color space. Color for the Sciences can be used as a reference for professionals or in a formal introductory course on colorimetry. It will be especially useful both for those working with color in a scientific or engineering context who find the standard texts lacking and for professionals and students in image engineering, computer graphics, and computer science. Each chapter ends with exercises, many of which are open-ended, suggesting ways to explore the topic further, and can be developed into research projects. The text and notes contain numerous suggestions for demonstration experiments and individual explorations. The book is self-contained, with formal methods explained in appendixes when necessary.

A comprehensive illustrated exploration of the fascinating science of color Arielle and Joann Eckstut, authors of The Secret Language of Color, offer a thorough, readable, and highly visual exploration of the science of color. Organized by 50 of the most essential questions about color across a variety of fields—physics, chemistry, biology, technology, and psychology—this book examines how and why we see color; how color relates to light; what the real primary colors are; how biology, language, and culture affect the colors that we see; and much more. Full of clear and elegant infographics, What Is Color? is a must-have for artists and designers, scientists, students, and decorators, and anyone else whose work or play involves color.

Colour imaging technology has become almost ubiquitous in modern life in the form of monitors, liquid crystal screens, colour printers, scanners, and digital cameras. This book is a comprehensive guide to the scientific and engineering principles of colour imaging. It covers the physics of light and colour, how the eye and physical devices capture colour images, how colour is measured and calibrated, and how images are processed. It stresses physical principles and includes a wealth of real-world examples. The book will be of value to scientists and engineers in the colour imaging industry and, with homework problems, can also be used as a text for graduate courses on colour imaging.

This volume presents the life work of the late Ruth Johnston-Feller, one of the nation's leading color scientists. It combines an overview of basic theoretical concepts with detailed, hands-on guidance for the professional conservator and conservation scientist. The author focuses on the application of color science to the solution of practical problems, providing a comprehensive discussion of the nondestructive spectrophotometric tools and techniques used to understand the color and appearance of materials during the technical examination of works of art. The book, which features numerous examples of reference reflectance spectra, can help prevent misinterpretation of color measurements and the erroneous conclusions that might result. Topics include spectrophotometry, colorimetry, colorant mixtures, analytical techniques, reflection, fluorescence, and the effects of extenders, fillers, and inerts.

Leading philosophers and scientists consider what conclusions about color can be drawn when the latest analytic tools are applied to the most sophisticated color science.Philosophers and scientists have long speculated about the nature of color. Atomists such as Democritus thought color to be "conventional," not real; Galileo and other key figures of the Scientific Revolution thought that it was an erroneous projection of our own sensations onto external objects. More recently, philosophers have enriched the debate about color by aligning the most advanced color science with the most sophisticated methods of analytical philosophy. In this volume, leading scientists and philosophers examine new problems with new analytic tools, considering such topics as the psychophysical measurement of color and its implications, the nature of color experience in both normal color-perceivers and the color blind, and questions that arise from what we now know about the neural processing of color information, color consciousness, and color language. Taken together, these papers point toward a complete restructuring of current orthodoxy concerning color experience and how it relates to objective reality. Kuehni, Jameson, Mausfeld, and Niederee discuss how the traditional framework of a three-dimensional color space and basic color terms is far too simple to capture the complexities of color experience. Clark and MacLeod discuss the difficulties of a materialist account of color experience. Churchland, Cohen, Matthen, and Westphal offer competing accounts of color ontology. Finally, Broackes and Byrne and Hilbert discuss the phenomenology of color blindness.Contributors Justin Broackes, Alex Byrne, Paul M. Churchland, Austen Clark, Jonathan Cohen, David R. Hilbert, Kimberly A. Jameson, Rolf Kuehni, Don I.A. MacLeod, Mohan Matthen, Rainer Mausfeld, Richard Niederée, Jonathan Westphal

Though he didn’t realize it at the time, David Lee began this book twenty-five years ago as he was hiking in the mountains outside Kuala Lumpur. Surrounded by the wonders of the jungle, Lee found his attention drawn to one plant in particular, a species of fern whose electric blue leaves shimmered amidst the surrounding green. The evolutionary wonder of the fern’s extravagant beauty filled Lee with awe—and set him on a career-long journey to understand everything about plant colors. Nature’s Palette is the fully ripened fruit of that journey—a highly illustrated, immensely entertaining exploration of the science of plant color. Beginning with potent reminders of how deeply interwoven plant colors are with human life and culture—from the shifting hues that told early humans when fruits and vegetables were edible to the indigo dyes that signified royalty for later generations—Lee moves easily through details of pigments, the evolution of color perception, the nature of light, and dozens of other topics. Through a narrative peppered with anecdotes of a life spent pursuing botanical knowledge around the world, he reveals the profound ways that efforts to understand and exploit plant color have influenced every sphere of human life, from organic chemistry to Renaissance painting to the highly lucrative orchid trade. Lavishly illustrated and packed with remarkable details sure to delight gardeners and naturalists alike, Nature’s Palette will enchant anyone who’s ever wondered about red roses and blue violets—or green thumbs.

Draws on contemporary perceptual science to address metaphysical questions about color.

A lively account of our age-old quest for brighter colors, which changed the way we see the world, from the best-selling author of Proof: The Science of Booze From kelly green to millennial pink, our world is graced with a richness of colors. But our human-made colors haven't always matched nature's kaleidoscopic array. To reach those brightest heights required millennia of remarkable innovation and a fascinating exchange of ideas between science and craft that's allowed for the most luminous manifestations of our built and adorned world. In Full Spectrum, Rogers takes us on that globe-trotting journey, tracing an arc from the earliest humans to our digitized, synthesized present and future. We meet our ancestors mashing charcoal in caves, Silk Road merchants competing for the best ceramics, and textile artists cracking the centuries-old mystery of how colors mix, before shooting to the modern era for high-stakes corporate espionage and the digital revolution that's rewriting the rules of color forever. In prose as vibrant as its subject, Rogers opens the door to Oz, sharing the liveliest events of an expansive human quest--to make a brighter, more beautiful world--and along the way, proving why he's "one of the best science writers around."* *National Geographic