A psychophysical study on the influence factors of color preference in photographic color reproduction

摘要

Reproduction of more pleasing colors is one of the efficient methods to improve image quality of color imaging devices. A psychophysical experiment was completed to investigate the preferred colors for three main categories: human skin, blue sky and green grass. A new experimental technique, the cube-selection method, was developed to adjust lightness, chroma and hue to find out observer's preference in CIELAB color space. It is a fast and accurate multi-dimensional adjustment technique superior to the conventional method of adjustment. Several potential influence factors for image color preference including image content, capturing illuminant, object background and culture difference were studied by comparing the observers' preference. Applicable conclusions were drawn from the analysis of the experiment results that help better understand the influence of these factors. It showed that capturing illuminant and image content had significant influence for human skin and grass color reproduction preference respectively. The results from this paper show the way for further research on influence factors of color preference in photographic color reproduction.