Spectrophotometric and Colorimetric Determination of the Colors of the TCCA Standard Color Cards

Abstract

The color cards of the Textile Color Card Association of the United States are widely used in the textile and allied industries and by many procuring agencies of the federal government. The Textile Color Card Association issues both seasonal and standard color cards. The seasonal cards provide a color forecasting service to textile manufacturers and promote color coordination among the trades; the standard cards present colors for which there is a popular and continuing demand. Most important of the color cards is the Standard Color Card of America, the current ninth edition containing 216 colors. Pre-eminent among the many special sets of color cards issued by the Association for use of the federal government is the United States Army Color Card showing 22 official colors for the arms and services. The specification of the colors of the Ninth Edition Standard Color Card and the United States Army Color Card has been undertaken for the purpose of correlating these textile standards with American War Standard Z44—1942 for the specification and description of color. The 238 samples comprising these color cards have been examined by basic spectrophotometric and colorimetric procedures. From this study there have been found daylight reflectance, Y, chromaticity coordinates (x, y), Munsell renotations, and ISCC-NBS color designations for these samples as recommended by American War Standard Z44—1942. Since more than half of these textile standards are fluorescent, and since existing spectrophotometers are not suited to the evaluation of such samples, considerable reliance has been placed on quantitative colorimetric and photometric comparisons with the Munsell color standards, both by means of a chromaticity-difference colorimeter and by the Martens photometer. As a closing check Munsell book notations of these textile standards have been obtained by a direct visual comparison with the color scales of the Munsell Book of Color.