This paper describes an investigation into the effect of a wide range of surround conditions on the colour appearance of test colours on a 42" plasma display panel. Experiments were conducted using surrounds including dark, indoor and outdoor conditions. Additionally the stimulus size was changed by controlling the viewing distance. The viewing conditions studied were two bright, two average, two dim and two dark surrounds. Each of the test colours was assessed by 10 observers using a magnitude estimation method. These surrounds were divided into two categories. In the first category, the surround had no effect on the displayed colours, but observers could still sense the different brightness levels of the surround. In the second category, surround introduced flare to the displayed colours together. For the first category, little visual lightness difference was shown between bright and dark, and dim and dark surround, unlike the expectation that the perceived lightness contrast may increase as the surround becomes brighter. The lightness dependency of colourfulness, however, was found to change. For the second category, the visual colour appearance of the surround conditions was plotted against measured data, CIELAB L*, C* values, to try to understand the surround effect. As the surround became brighter, the perceived dynamic range of visual lightness decreased, and the perceived colourfulness increased, more obviously in high chroma colours. In the investigation of the change of stimulus size under different surround conditions, visual colour appearance was not affected by the stimulus sizes of 2^o and 0.6^o in the dark surround. However, the difference was found in the very dark colours with a dim surround. Finally, all of visual colour appearance data were used to test the performance of the colour appearance model CIECAM02. Minor modification was accomplished to improve the colourfulness predictor, especially for the black background.

Date Published: 29 January 2007
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 6493, Color Imaging XII: Processing, Hardcopy, and Applications, 649308 (29 January 2007); doi: 10.1117/12.703784

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 6493:
Color Imaging XII: Processing, Hardcopy, and Applications
Reiner Eschbach; Gabriel G. Marcu, Editor(s)