Testing CIELAB-Based Color-
Difference Formulas
Manuel Melgosa
Departamento de Óptica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada. 18071—Granada (Spain)
Received 29 September 1998; accepted 17 March 1999
Abstract: The CMC, BFD, and CIE94 color-difference for-
mulas have been compared throughout their weighting
functions to the CIELAB components DL*, DC*, DH*, and
from their performance with respect to several wide data-
sets from old and recent literature. Predicting the magni-
tude of perceived color differences, a statistically significant
improvement upon CIELAB should be recognized for these
three formulas, in particular for CIE94. © 2000 John Wiley &
Sons, Inc. Col Res Appl, 25, 49 –55, 2000
Key words: color-difference formulas; CIELAB; CIE94
INTRODUCTION
It is generally assumed that, although much more research
needs to be done in the field of industrial color-difference
evaluation, in the last few years significant advances have
been made through the use of several CIELAB-based for-
mulas. As is well known, using CIELAB the color-differ-
ences are easily computed as Euclidean distances in this
space or, better yet, from an intuitive point of view, as the
result of the differences of the three color attributes (light-
ness, chroma and hue differences: DL*, DC*, DH*). How-
ever, when the CIELAB space was recommended in 1976,1
it was indicated that “in different practical applications it
may be necessary to use different weightings for DL*,
DC*, and DH*.” 2 This indication was followed, among
others, by the CMC,3 BFD,4 and CIE945 color-difference
formulas, which can be considered CIELAB-based formu-
las and have the next common structure:
FS D S D S D G
DL* 2
DC* 2
DH* 2 1/ 2
DE* 5 1 1
k LW L k CW C k HW h
In this equation, the lightness, chroma, and hue differences
are always computed from CIELAB, and each one is
Correspondence to: Manuel Melgosa; e-mail: mmelgosa@goliat.ugr.es
Contract grant sponsor: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (España)
Contract grant number: Research Project PB96-1454
© 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Volume 25, Number 1, February 2000
weighted by two different types of variables: the weighting
functions (designated by the letter W), which are intended
to improve the perceptual uniformity of CIELAB; and the
parametric factors (designated by the letter k), which are
meant to account for the influence of specific experimental
conditions on perceived color differences. In addition, in the
case of the BFD formula,4 there is an additional crossed
term in Eq. (1) to account for the rotation of some experi-
mental discrimination ellipses in the plane a*b* (color
discrimination ellipses predicted by CIE94 or CMC are
radially oriented in this plane).
The CMC and BFD formulas have been successfully used
by different industries, mainly in the United Kingdom, as a
better alternative to the CIELAB formula. Specifically, in
textile pass/fail color-difference work, the Colour Measure-
ment Committee has recently recommended again the use of
the CMC formula.6 The CIE94 formula was the result of the
analyses performed by the CIE TC 1-29 seeking a simple
CIELAB-based formula with a significant improvement in
the prediction of perceived color-differences, in particular
under experimental conditions typical of those commonly
used in industrial applications. In addition to the CMC,
BFD, and CIE94 formulas, the use of other unpublished
formulas such as those from Marks & Spencer or Datacolor
also should be mentioned.7 The active research in this field
has led to, among other things, the publication of new CIE
guidelines8 updating those given in 1978,9 and to the ap-
proval of the CIE TC 1-47 “Hue and lightness-dependent
correction to industrial color-difference evaluation,” at-
tempting to improve the performance of the recently rec-
. (1) ommended CIE94 formula.
For a long time, the use of multiple color-difference
formulas for industrial applications was a major shortcom-
ing, which was successfully solved by the recommendation
of CIELAB and CIELUV made in 1976. In particular, ever
since this recommendation, the use of the CIELAB space
has been widely accepted.10,11 As pointed out by Witt,12
from the current use of different CIELAB-based formulas,
we should consider whether we are now returning to the
CCC 0361-2317/00/010049-07 49
FIG. 1. Dependences of the weighting functions for lightness, chroma, and hue for different color-difference formulas. A
common origin with CIELAB has been adopted in each plot by multiplying by the scaling factors given in Table I.

past with a high diversity of formulas, which could be a new CIE94 formulas, as shown in Fig. 1. In this figure, seeking
potential source of misunderstanding in industrial applica- a clearer comparison of the dependences shown by each one
tions. In addition, as pointed out by Alman et al.,13 it might of the three weighting functions of these formulas, we have
be thought that pragmatic considerations dictate that revi- placed them at the same origins by multiplying by appro-
sion of the color-difference metric standards should occur priate scaling factors given in Table I. The weighting func-
only if the improvement is real (statistically significant) and tion for lightness (upper left) is an increasing function of
substantial enough to counterweight the expenses of soft- lightness for CMC and BFD, but there is no such correction
ware modification and personnel retraining. for CIE94. Relatively similar increasing weighting func-
For these reasons, in this article we report some compar- tions for chroma are proposed by the three CIELAB-based
isons of CIELAB and the CIELAB-based formulas CMC, formulas analyzed here (upper right). Finally, for the
BFD, and CIE94. In the first part of the next section, we weighting functions for hue, in general, there are both hue
compare the different weighting functions proposed by and chroma dependences. The chroma dependence (lower
these formulas, showing that they cannot be considered right) again shows relatively similar increasing functions for
identical, although they have a similar structure [Eq. (1)]. the three formulas, but not the hue dependence (lower left):
Next, we analyze the performance of these formulas, to- there are two clear minimums for CMC, three minimums for
gether with CIELUV and CIELAB, with respect to different BFD, and no hue dependence for CIE94. It should be said
wide groups of experimental data selected from old and
recent literature. Finally, the statistical significance of the
improvements achieved by these formulas have also been TABLE I. Scaling factors used to multiply the different
tested for these experimental data. weighting functions and put them in Fig. 1 at the same
origin than CIELAB, for comparative purposes.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Wh vs. Hue Wh vs. C*
WL WC (C* 5 50) (h 5 45°)
Comparison of Weighting Functions
CMC 1.96 1.43 0.57 1.45
Different weighting functions for lightness (W L ), chroma BFD 4.18 1.80 0.74 1.81
(W C ) and hue (W h ) are proposed by the CMC, BFD, and CIE94 1.00 1.00 0.57 1.00

50 COLOR research and application

FIG. 2. Ratio of the weighting functions for chroma and hue
FIG. 3. Relationship between the weighting function for
for different formulas—CIE94, CMC (h 5 45° and 135°) and
chroma proposed by CIE94 and those proposed by the
BFD (h 5 45° and 135°)—against chroma.
CMC and BFD formulas, as a function of the chroma.

that the most important qualitative discrepancies between

these three CIELAB-based formulas concern the usefulness Figure 3 shows a relationship between CIE94 and CMC
of a lightness and a hue-dependence correction. These two or BFD, through the ratio of their weighting functions for
questions are currently being studied by the CIE TC 1-47. chroma W C . The values on the y-axis of this plot can be
In Fig. 1, the W L function for BFD (upper left) has been interpreted as the CMC or BFD color-differences corre-
computed after transforming the L BFD logarithmic scale; sponding to pairs of samples with a common color-differ-
assuming that the increments can be treated as differentials, ence of 1.0 CIE94 units, having only a chroma component
(Y/Y O ) is greater than 0.008856 and (1.5/Y O ) is negligi- (i.e., DL* 5 DH* 5 0), and with different average
ble.14 In this figure, a medium chroma (C* 5 50) has been chroma. As shown in this example, a constant color-differ-
selected for the plot of W h against hue-angle (lower left), ence of 1.0 CIE94 units is equal to CMC color-differences
and a 45° hue-angle for the one of W h against C* (lower in a relatively wide range (approximately 1.1–1.6 CMC
right). This last hue-angle value has been selected, because units). Of course, this is a particular example for pairs of
CMC and BFD have nearly the same value of W h at C* 5 samples with only chroma differences; there is no general
50 (before applying the scaling factors leading to Figure 1), analytical relationship between the color differences com-
which, in addition, is close to 1.0. puted from CIE94 and CMC or BFD, as usually happens for
From the values on the y-axes of the plots shown in Fig. any other pair of color-difference formulas.
1, it should be noted that in general the corrections to the Finally, Fig. 4 shows the differences between the radially
three components of the CIELAB color-differences are of
different magnitudes: for example, the weighting function
for chroma differences (upper right) seems to be the most
important correction to CIELAB for any of our three for-
mulas, while the hue dependence in the weighting function
for hue in CMC or BFD (lower left) seems to be a minor,
although not negligible, correction factor. In addition, we
also observe that the slope of the weighting function for
lightness (upper left) is substantially higher for BFD than
for CMC, as a consequence of the common origin used in
this plot (the scaling factor used for BFD was 4.18, as
shown in Table I).
Although from Fig. 1 some of the weighting functions of
our CIELAB-based formulas appear to be relatively similar,
it should be noted that, in general, these formulas are
different, as illustrated by the next two examples.
Figure 2 shows the ratio between the weighting functions
for chroma and hue for different formulas, which is always
FIG. 4. Rotation of the major axis of the ellipses predicted
greater than 1.0. Although this ratio is an increasing func- by BFD with respect to the a*b* radial orientation, as a
tion of chroma for CIE94, however, for either CMC or BFD, function of the hue-angle (a medium chroma C* 5 50 has
it is nearly constant from a relatively low value of chroma. been assumed).

Volume 25, Number 1, February 2000 51

FIG. 5. Performance of different color-difference formulas for several experimental datasets from old and recent literature,
from the values of our parameter of isotropy S2% (see text). Lower values indicate better performance.
oriented ellipses predicted by CIE94 or CMC in a*b*, and
the rotated ellipses predicted by BFD, as a consequence of
its additional crossed term. The orientations of the BFD
ellipses have been computed from the CIELAB metric
coefficients associated with this formula.15 The highest ro-
tations of the BFD ellipses are in the blue and red zones, and
their magnitude is slight for the medium chroma selected
here (C* 5 50), although it affects the performance of the
formula, as shown below.
Comparison with Experimental Results
From the previous results, it should be concluded that the
three CIELAB-based formulas considered here are not iden-
tical. Additional evidence for the differences between these
formulas could be obtained by plotting the projections of
some of their a*, b*, L* predicted ellipsoids (with semi-
axes W L , W C , W h , assuming unit parametric factors), as
illustrated by Berns.16 Thus, perhaps the key question
should be to compare the performance of these CIELAB-
based formulas with respect to different experimental data-
sets on color discrimination obtained under different exper-
imental conditions.
For this purpose, we have selected four experimental
datasets obtained with visual colorimeters and reported in
classical literature,17–20 together with two recent outstanding
datasets from object colors,21,22 which constitute the most
52
interesting samples in practical applications. The method
employed to compare the performance of the different for-
mulas analyzed here has been previously applied by us23–25
and follows the steps described below.
Since the pioneering work carried out by MacAdam in
1942,17 contours of equally perceived color-differences DV
around a given center are usually reported in the literature as
ellipses or ellipsoids in a color space. It would be desirable
for computed color-differences DE i between the center of
any of such ellipses (or ellipsoids) and points regularly
distributed on the periphery of the ellipse (or the surface of
the ellipsoid) also to have a constant value. Thus, in a
preliminary step, to evaluate the performance of a given
formula, we compute for each ellipse/ellipsoid the mean and
the coefficient of variation of the DE i color-differences,
which can be designated as ^DE& and S%, respectively.
Next, for a set of experimental ellipses or ellipsoids, we
compute the normalized standard deviation of ^DE& and the
normalized arithmetic mean of S%, designated as S1% and
S2%, respectively. Parameter S1% gives a measurement of
the differences between several regions of the color space
(that is a measurement of the “homogeneity”), while param-
eter S2% indicates the local uniformity in different direc-
tions around a color center (that is, a measurement of the
“isotropy”). Lower values of these parameters indicate bet-
ter performance of the formula used, the ideal values being
zero in both cases. In particular, low values of parameter
COLOR research and application
FIG. 6. Performance of different color-difference formulas for several experimental datasets from old and recent literature,
from the values of our parameter of homogeneity S1% (see text). Lower values indicate better performance.
S2% constitute the most important indicator for the good-
ness of the color-difference formulas tested.
Figure 5 shows the values of parameter S2% from dif-
ferent color-difference formulas and four wide datasets.
Classical results from old literature17–20 are shown in the
first row, distinguishing chromaticity (upper left) and color-
differences (upper right). This distinction between the re-
sults obtained from ellipses and ellipsoids comes from the
significant differences found between them in a previous
work.24 Bearing in mind that there are different experimen-
tal conditions and visual scales in different experiments, in
general it is not appropriate to merge the results from
different experiments, as we have done in the first row of
Fig. 5. However, for our current comparative purposes, this
is not misleading, because an initial normalization was
applied before computing S2% and S1% for each ellipse or
ellipsoid, and, in addition, it can be seen that the main
conclusions from these plots are consistent with those found
from the individual experiments, which have been reported
in previous works.23–25
In our opinion, the main conclusions from Fig. 5 can be
summarized as follows: (1) In general, CIELAB improves
CIELUV, although a quite similar performance can be seen
for chromaticity ellipses (upper left), which can be consid-
ered to be in agreement with the 1976 recommendation for
both formulas and previous works.26 (2) The three
CIELAB-based formulas (CMC, BFD, and CIE94) improve
Volume 25, Number 1, February 2000
CIELAB, in particular for object colors (second row), as it
might be expected, bearing in mind that they were used to
develop these formulas. (3) CMC and CIE94 give similar
results, with the exception of the RIT-DuPont dataset,22
which was the main dataset used for the development of
CIE94. (4) The good results found by BFD for chromaticity
differences (upper left) do not hold for color differences
(upper right), perhaps as a consequence of the high slope in
the weighting function for lightness adopted by this for-
mula, as mentioned before.
Conclusions rather similar to the previous ones can be
found from the values of our parameter S1%, as shown by
Fig. 6. Specifically, improvement upon CIELAB can be
seen again for the three CIELAB-based formulas, in partic-
ular for CIE94.
Statistical Significance of the Differences
By applying the U-test,27 we have checked when our main
parameter S2% has significantly different values in the four
previous datasets. This nonparametric test was preferred,
because no assumptions about the underlying distributions
are necessary. The formulas being statistically different at a
90% confidence level are connected by asterisks in Fig. 7.
Among the main conclusions from Fig. 7, it can be noted
that CIE94 is significantly different than CIELAB for all the
datasets (and the same can be stated for CMC and BFD for
53
FIG. 7. Results of the nonparametric U-test from the values of our parameter S2%. The asterisks indicate for each dataset
the formulas significantly different at a confidence level of 90%.
three of the four wide datasets analyzed in this figure). In
addition, we also observe that CIE94 and CMC are not
significantly different for any of our datasets at a 90%
confidence level (and even for any of the experimental
works considered in the group of classical literature17–20).
BFD is significantly different than CIE94, except for the
Luo and Rigg ellipses,21 probably because most of the
ellipses in this dataset were used for the development of
BFD. It should also be noted that CIELAB and CIELUV are
significantly different for the two datasets having ellipsoids,
but not for those having ellipses. For future developments
and testing of color-difference formulas, the use of pairs of
samples with an appropriate tridimensional distribution
around each center (such as made, for example, with those
used in the design of the RIT-DuPont experiment22), should
be emphasized.24
CONCLUSION
In summary, the last few years have, in our opinion, seen
significant improvements in the prediction of the magnitude
of perceived color-differences, by the use of several
CIELAB-based formulas, in particular CIE94. Of course,
much more research needs to be done within this topic, for
example, by analyzing the influence of specific parametric
factors, such as those affecting the optimal weighting func-
tion for lightness differences.14 In any case, we believe that
the current structure of the CIE94 formula will be useful, at
least in the near future, without disregarding that the current
use of the CIELAB space as the starting point could be
surpassed by advances in the knowledge concerning color
appearance and the physiology of our visual system.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author is grateful to Mr. David Nesbitt for translating
the original manuscript into English.
54
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