3nh NH300, Operation Manual

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High-Quality Portable Colorimeter
37
Appendix
1. The Color of Objects
There are three major elements to perceive color: light, object and observer.
Any change of these three elements will influence the observer’s color
perception. When the light source and the observer don’t change, then the
object will determine the observer’s color perception.
Objects can affect the final color perception because the reflectance spectra
(transmittance spectra) of the object have modulated the light source spectrum.
Different objects have different reflectance spectra (transmittance spectra).
The light source spectrum modulates the reflectance spectra (transmittance
spectra) of different objects to obtain different results. The observer is the
same, so it shows different colors. The theory is shown in the figure below.