Our project explored how to most accurately display the color of a piece of fabric. We carried out two different methods to attempt this. The first relied on a spectrophotometer to measure the spectra power density of our fabric samples. From this and the knowledge of our illuminant spectra, we were able to determine the true RGB values for our spectra and display them fairly accurately on an sRGB monitor.

 

Our second method undertook the challenge of processing an image that has already been captured by a camera so that it displays the colors correctly. This was done using a picture of a Macbeth Color Checker that was taken under the same conditions as the pictures of interest. By successfully carrying out this method and showing that for some of the fabrics it does reliably improve the color accuracy, we demonstrated a potential process that online retailers could go through to make sure their online images are as accurate as possible. If they did not care enough to do such processing of their own apparel images, simply posting a picture online of the Macbeth Color Checker taken under the same conditions as their clothing items would allow a particularly eager customer to do their own color correction.