Visual Color Difference between Colored-Yarn Mixed Woven Fabrics and Their Instrumentally Measured Colors: the Effects of Individual Yarn Colors and Texture

Abstract

The study investigated the differences between perceived and instrumentally measured colors of woven fabrics in which different colored yarns are woven together such that they are perceived as solid colors. Cyan, magenta, and yellow yarns were woven together to produce 63 fabrics in a wide range of colors, the values of which were measured spectrophotometrically. The measured colors were generated as solid color images on a calibrated cathode ray tube (CRT) monitor. Then the fabrics were scanned and their scanned images were displayed beside their corresponding solid color images on the CRT monitor to evaluate the visual color difference between them. The results showed that the individual yarn colors and their interlacement on the fabric surface influenced the overall color appearance. Although the woven and solid colors in each pair had identical CIELAB color values, the perceived color difference was as large as 5.68 ΔE*ab,10 on average. Fabrics composed of various colors of yarn were found to have larger visual color differences from their measured colors than those composed of single colors of yarn. The visual color difference varied according to texture, but texture strength, which has been widely reported as a strong parametric factor in visual color difference evaluation, was not shown to have had a consistent effect. This study also examined how the overall color attributes, including the lightness, chroma, and hue, of fabrics affected the visual color difference and developed a predictive model of those effects.