About the Book

Thanks to Daniel_Li for recommending this book in the group.

I consider this an excellent introductory text on colour science. It systematically presents the framework and key concepts of colour science with minimal verbosity, resulting in a concise volume.

Though not without issues – such as substantial content overlap with Professor Xu Haisong’s Colour Information Engineering, disorganised sequencing of topics, and various minor flaws – it remains one of the better textbooks and reference works I’ve encountered within China.

Title: Principles of Colour Reproduction in Digital Images (数字影像颜色再现原理)
Author: Gu Xiaojuan (顾晓娟)
ISBN: 978-7-115-61746-0

Plan

The plan involves distilling and summarising each chapter’s content, reproducing key algorithms, providing expanded references, and completing selected exercises.

The current abbreviation used is PCRDI (Principles of Colour Reproduction in Digital Images).

Contents

The notes follow the book’s chapter structure, so here’s a brief overview of its contents.

Light and Vision

Serves as an introductory chapter covering fundamental concepts of light and vision, with particular emphasis on photometry.

Fundamentals of Colorimetry

Introduces colour matching experiments and derives the CIE standard colorimetric system (tristimulus values, colour coordinates, etc.). Briefly covers uniform colour spaces and the Munsell colour system, followed by colour difference formulae.

Illuminants and Light Sources

Presents common light sources in colour science and their evaluation methods, including CIE standard illuminants, colour rendering assessment, and light quality metrics.

Chromatic Adaptation and Chromatic Adaptation Transforms

Building upon light sources and colorimetry fundamentals, this chapter explores human chromatic adaptation phenomena and key adaptation models, laying groundwork for colour appearance models.

Colour Appearance Phenomena and Colour Appearance Models

Since basic colorimetry inadequately describes subjective colour perception, colour appearance attributes are crucial.
Covers colour appearance attributes and common phenomena, followed by significant colour appearance models.

Colour Measurement and Colorimetric Instruments

This chapter spans merely four pages

As colour science seldom focuses on measurement specifics (spectral separation, sensor technology), it briefly introduces common colorimetric instruments and their basic principles.

Colour Reproduction

Colour reproduction represents the ultimate goal of production workflows.
Leveraging previously introduced models and methods, this chapter covers evaluation metrics and specialised concepts in colour reproduction.

Colour Information Processing in Digital Cameras

Explains camera operational principles and characterisation methods.
Provides detailed coverage of demosaic algorithms and white balance techniques.

Colour Information Processing in Display Devices

Examines display device fundamentals and colour rendering workflows. Includes thorough explanations of colour mixing methods for multi-primary displays.

Digital Colour Management Systems

Introduces colour management systems (e.g., ICC, ACES) as comprehensive applications of all preceding concepts.