Effect of ambient light on the color appearance of softcopy images: Mixed chromatic adaptation for self-luminous displays

Abstract

With the widespread use of color management systems (CMSs), users are now able to achieve device independent color across different media. However, most of the current CMSs guaran- tee the same color only if one sees color under a controlled viewing condition. If one sees color under a different viewing condition, the reproduced color does not match the original. The effect of ambient light on the appearance of the color of softcopy images is discussed in this article. In a typical office environment, a computer graphic monitor with a correlated color temperature (CCT) of 9300 K is widely used under an F6 fluorescent light of 4150 K CCT. In such a case, the human visual system is partially adapted to the CRT moni- tor's white point and partially to the ambient light. A new adaptation model, S-LMS, is proposed to compensate for the mixed chromatic adaptation. Visual experiments were performed to evaluate the mixed chromatic adaptation. Experimental results indicated that hu- man visual system is 60% adapted to the monitor's white point and 40% to ambient light when viewing softcopy images. © 1998 SPIE and IS&T. (S1017-9909(98)00404-8)