The chromaticness of gamut limit colors of a printer is important because it is often directly compared to that of competitors. The CIELAB C_(ab)~* is often used as the descriptor of the chromatic strength of chromaticness of these colors. However, the lightness of a color may also contribute to the perceived chromaticness. In this study, nine highly chromatic red color samples of the same CIELAB hue but having small variations of CIELAB chroma and lightness were prepared and scaled for colorfulness by 29 subjects using the method of paired-comparison. The results indicate that lightness also significantly contributed to the perceived colorfulness as defined by the subjects according to their everyday color experiences. At the same level of CIELAB chroma, samples of lower lightness were perceived to be more colorful. For this set of samples, colorfulness can be accurately modeled by factoring in the CIELAB L~* value. The results also raise some questions regarding the definition and use of colorfulness in color appearance modeling. That is colorfulness, as implied in our everyday color experiences, is a complex parameter.
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