Image color adjustment for harmony with a target color

Although a number of methods have been developed for image adjustment in various applications, very little work has been done in the context of visual design. In this regard, this article introduces a novel and practical context of image color adjustment and develops a method to adjust an image for harmony with a target color. The experiment with designers revealed that designers made significant changes in hue dimension, and preferred to promote color similarity between the image and the target color. Based on insights from designers, we proposed a method to achieve a harmonious combination of an image and a color element by increasing the hue similarity between them. The result of a user test revealed that our method is particularly useful for images with nonliving objects but less effective for images involving human skin, foods, and so on. It is expected that the practical context investigated in this study can promote a variety of related studies that satisfy the tangible needs of industries and academia.     

A consultation and simulation system for product color planning based on interactive genetic algorithms

In the early stage of a design process, it is important to create numerous and varied possible color plans for the target consumer group. These color plans help individual designers quickly find a few good color design schemes and give the design team ideas for brainstorming. The color plan of a product consists of the color combinations of its components and decorative patterns, which strongly influence the feelings of customers and thus their desire to purchase. However, very few studies have discussed these issues. In this study, a consultation and simulation system for product color planning that helps designers obtain the optimal color planning for components and decorative patterns of a product is proposed. This system includes two parts: one uses the interactive genetic algorithm to establish a creative evolutionary system that can interact with a designer to explore novel design schemes; the other extends the boundary extract algorithm to establish a color simulation system that can apply colors to the areas of product components and decorative patterns for color simulation. Finally, a case study of color planning for a motorcycle model is used to verify the feasibility of the proposed system. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 38, 375–390, 2013     

Product color emotional design considering color layout

Emotional experience and demand for product colors are important factors in users' decisions to buy and use a product. Therefore, accurately characterizing users' emotional responses of the product's color has become a significant consideration for product color design. However, a product color design problem exists in which it is challenging to accurately and efficiently position users' color image space because consumers have completely different image perceptions when encountering a large number of color schemes generated by different color spatial distributions. For this reason, this article proposes a product color emotional design method that considers the color layout. A table is built of an elemental composition for product color design, which contains color layout forms. This article also establishes a mapping model based on the semantic difference and back propagation neural network between the users' color image perceptions and the elements of the product's color design. The system recommends a color layout form that matches the users' emotional image goal through the k‐nearest neighbor algorithm, and then the form is initialized using a genetic algorithm. The system can realize the solution to the optimal product color scheme by optimizing and evaluating the population. Designers can make intuitive choices and decisions through the product color recommendation system. Through an example of color design for industrial vacuum cleaners, this article shows that the method has satisfactory feasibility and applicability for solving the problem of the optimization of product color design with color layout forms.     

Product color emotional design adaptive to product shape feature variation

When a user selects a product, he/she considers the emotional experience induced by the product color. However, when affected by product shape feature, the color image perception space of a user becomes more complex and dynamic. To address this problem, a product color emotional design method adaptive to product shape feature variation is proposed in this article. Based on psychological means, factor analysis and semantic differential methods are used to elucidate the mechanism for the formation of a color image perception space of a user influenced by product shape feature. Using support vector regression, a product color image evaluation model adaptive to product shape feature variation is constructed, and is then optimized via a genetic algorithm. A corresponding design system is constructed based on the method proposed in this article. A case study involving the design of a thermos for children is presented to demonstrate the operational procedure involved in the proposed method and to verify its performance. The results of the verification experiments confirm that the design scheme from system recommendation essentially meets the anticipated image target and assists the designer effectively. The method and system proposed in this study can generate a product color design scheme, which is unconstrained by shape feature and can satisfy user emotional preferences and needs, and have a certain applicability and practicability.     

Color preference affected by mode of color appearance

Most color preference research focuses on colors in an object color mode. In our daily life, however, colors are perceived not only as an object color mode but also as other modes, such as unnatural object color and light source color modes. To explore the effect of the color appearance mode on color preference, we examined the relationship between color preference and the mode of color appearance. Thirty‐three color chips were chosen from the Munsell notation varying in hues and chromas. The color chips were presented in different color appearance modes by changing the subject's room illuminance and the color chip room illuminance. The experimental results showed that the brightest and most saturated colors were preferred. It was found that the subject preferred color in a light source color mode and unnatural object color mode to color in an object color mode. Moreover, we found that hue had a small effect on color preference in the light source color mode. We also investigated the relationship between color preference and the perceived color attributes (perceived chromaticness, whiteness, and blackness). In a supplementary experiment, elementary color naming was conducted. The results showed that the perceived chromaticness, perceived whiteness, and perceived blackness play a role for the determination of color preference for different color appearance modes. We, consequently, suggest that color preference is dominated not only by color attributes but also by the mode of color appearance. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 2010     

Color‐emotion associations,designing color schemes for urban environment‐architectural settings

Color in urban design has become an important issue, each city may present different colors which help to define and describe its architectural features. In the study, color in urban design with architectural setting is studied, façade colors are analyzed with a specific emphasis on the following research questions; “Can color schemes be designed in respect to color‐emotion associations? ” and “Are color‐emotion associations affective while designing architectural setting‐urban environment?.” Non‐color experts, 170 people, from different European and non‐European countries were asked to match the most appropriate adjectives with the given street views in accordance to their color schemes. In the first step, the effect of color is identified in relation to architectural environment‐urban setting, second the relative effect of color is studied as a component of the material. A categorical specification on color cognition and linguistic level of representation is attempted. The results can be a starting point to highlight the importance of preparing color schemes in regard to color‐emotion associations. Abstract color schemes may also provide us an idea about image setting, especially at design process stage. In the study, keywords are linked as environment‐response pairs; such as quiet, calming, lively, exclusive, reserved, and natural. Human psychophysical structure such as “warm‐cool,” “heavy‐light” in regard to visualizing certain colors are evaluated and described in terms of building materials.     

An interactive method for generating harmonious color schemes

We present an interactive visualization tool for generating color schemes that can be used by both professional artists and novice designers to improve their design efficiency. The method is developed on two color harmony principles of familial factors and rhythmic spans from conventional color theories. The interactive tool makes use of these principles for users to interactively generate colors palettes containing harmonious combinations in the hue, saturation, and lightness color space in as few steps as possible. A pilot study with 20 participants has shown that this tool provides efficient workflow, color‐scheme harmony, and intuitive interaction, demonstrating the usefulness of the method. This work contributes to an artistic‐theory driven harmonious color‐scheme generation and to interactive user interfaces visualizing color relationships. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 39, 70–78, 2014     

A systematic approach of predicting color preference on the basis of gray relational grade

During the color design process, it is critical to create diversified color schemes for various consumer groups. It is also important to allow members in a design team to brainstorm for creative ideas. A theory of inspecting natural color elements was proposed in this study based on the CIE 1976 (L*,a*,b*) (CIE 1976) color space and the fuzzy c‐means clustering method. A calculation model was built to determine people's preference for colors based on a serialized system. To determine which factors affect the prediction of consumers' preference for a series of products, a gray relational color preference system was used in combination with gray relational grade so that a designer can obtain reasonable prediction results. The proposed system recommends not only the optimal colors for a product but also the optimal color scheme for a series of products.     

Research on color optimization of tricolor product considering color harmony and users' emotion

There are few studies on the tricolor design optimization, and the influence of color-area ratio on users' emotion has been ignored. This article aims to achieve multiobjective optimization of tricolor product color design. Two modes of color-area ratio are put forward. Using the proposed method of generating tricolor schemes, 368 tricolor schemes of the representative baby carriage are designed. Through questionnaire survey, color images are screened, and combined with correlation analysis and factor analysis, five perceptual features of color design are determined as “Order,” “Excitement,” “Temperature,” “Color harmony,” and “Users' emotional preference.” From two perspectives of color information processing, radial basis function neural networks are used to construct two emotional evaluation models. By integrating the radial basis function neural networks and a genetic algorithm, this study achieves multiobjective optimization of tricolor product color design for two optimization objectives of color harmony and users' emotional preference. Verification results show that the optimization schemes are significantly better than other schemes. Due to similar product characteristics, children's electric car is utilized to verify the generalization capability of the optimization method proposed in this article. It has been demonstrated that the optimization schemes achieve higher scores than randomly selected color schemes and the actual subjective scores match with the predicted scores computed by the color optimization method.     

Optimization of color reproduction on CRT‐color monitors

In the present experimental study, we quantify the influence of the brightness and contrast levels of a CRT‐color monitor in the color reproduction of 60 Munsell chips distributed throughout the chromatic diagram. The images were captured by two CCD cameras, and the color differences were evaluated after reproducing the chips on a color monitor (the experiment was performed with 3 different monitors) for 9 combinations of brightness‐contrast levels. We evaluated the color differences with 3 different formulas: CIELAB, CIELUV, and CIE94. The results indicate that the optimal settings of a monitor, to minimize the color differences, is a medium or minimum brightness level in combination with a maximum contrast level. This combination ensures a more faithful color reproduction with respect to the original image. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Col Res Appl, 24, 207–213, 1999     

An adaptive approach to create on‐demand color schemes for mapping quantitative geographic data

Creating a satisfying quantitative color scheme is challenging for both novices and experts. Geovisualization often suffers from the misuse and misunderstanding of quantitative color schemes. This article presents an adaptive method to create ready‐to‐use quantitative schemes. A probability‐based method for color selection is presented to quantify the selection of quantitative colors from learning samples of varying popularity. To shape the color transitions, a regression analysis is performed to fit the mathematical curves for the transitions of hue, saturation, and brightness. Finally, the problem of creating satisfying quantitative schemes is translated into a multiconstraint optimization problem. A discretize‐and‐filter method is also presented to solve the optimization problem of globally identifying a suitable scheme in a continuous color space. The proposed method is evaluated with a case study, and the results indicate that the proposed method can derive satisfying schemes. In addition, the proposed method is adaptive to mapping feature, target reader and target device.     

Applying image‐based color palette for achieving high image quality of displays

In the highly competitive display market, manufacturers continuously develop new technologies to improve the image quality of displays. However, color measurement and visual assessment are time‐consuming to production lines. A new method to measure and improve color quality of the displays automatically therefore, is urgently needed to the manufacturers. This article proposes a familiar color correction strategy to optimize the colors of different displays by means of creating an image‐based color palette which enables color correction for familiar objects (e.g., facial skin, blue sky, or green grass) in the multidisplay systems. To produce the image‐based color palette, the 8‐bit RGB value of each pixel in an image is transformed to L*d*n* (lightness/dominant color/nondominant color) color channels, and the dominant‐color regions in an image are subsequently extracted from the dominant color (d*) channel. The memory color data of familiar objects can be set in reference monitor in advance to determine the dominant color (d*) channel. Then a series of palette colors are generated around a displayed image. The color palette will be displayed as a target for two‐dimensional colorimeter shooting to obtain the measured color data. The familiar color correction model was established based on a first‐order polynomial regression to achieve a polynomial fit between the measured color data and the reference color data on the color palette. The proposed method provides a solution to correct familiar colors on a displayed image, and maintains the original color gamut and tone characteristic in the multidisplay systems simultaneously. It is possible to achieve the preferred intent of the displayed images by using the proposed familiar color correction method. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 39, 154–168, 2014     

A User‐Oriented Method for Preferential Color Scheme Generation

Harmony and preference are two important factors in constructing color combination for the purpose of color design. We presented a method for generating harmonious color scheme in a previous project. As an extension to the project, we propose here a method for generating color schemes that are based on user's preference. We considered color combinations as a set of color relations rather than a summation of specific color components (color elements); and we derived a model of six‐variable color relations, representative value of hue, representative value of saturation, representative value of lightness, span of hue, span of saturation, and span of lightness. With this model, color combinations can be expressed as specific parameters of the six‐variable model. Individual preferences are represented as certain parameters, from which new color schemes can be reconstructed to meet individual requirements. An interactive system for generating preferential color schemes is built with all these principles integrated. As a color design toolkit for user study, the system accesses user's preference features for color combinations, and provides new color schemes that fit the user's need. User study shows that both professionals and novices can generally acquire preferential color schemes of their own. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 40, 147–156, 2015     

Color selection in the consideration of color harmony for interior design

A color selection method that considers subjective principles is becoming more and more necessary in a computer‐based color management system. However, one from an engineering perspective has received limited attention. Previously, we developed an approach to measure the degree of color harmony by the similarity of a pleasure‐related function, CLD (color linguistic distribution), to a RHD (reference harmony distribution) on a one‐dimensional image scale of EXCITING–CALM. Following this approach, a new color selection system is presented in this article by modulating the CLD on the image scale. The procedure used is to encode an inharmonious image as a CLD, then it is modulated and referred to as a RHD, called an imagery specification. Finally, the specified CLD is decoded and reconstructed as a harmonious image in an operated color space. Four types of RHD are compared: three ideal fuzzy sets scaled to extremely calm, quite calm, and slightly calm, and the practical one measured from social trends. For verification, the harmony grade of the decoded image can be measured based on the referred RHD. As a result, four times the harmonic degree of the decoded image is gained than the originally encoded one. For application purposes, the proposed system is suitable for applications related to human subjectivity. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Col Res Appl, 25, 20–31, 2000     

A harmony-based approach to generating sequential color schemes for maps

Generating high-quality sequential color schemes for maps is challenging for most mapmakers. This article presents a harmony-based approach for automatically generating sequential color schemes for maps. The proposed approach consists of two steps: (a) color harmony quantification for sequential color schemes on maps and (b) color scheme generation using quantified color harmony factors. The approach was tested using three experimental maps, including the Chinese water body density index map, Chinese vegetation cover index map, and Chinese population density map. Effectiveness was evaluated by comparing color schemes generated by the proposed approach with those created by the probability-based method and ColorBrewer. Twenty-six participants were invited to rate each map color scheme using a 5-point scale. A t test was also used to examine the significance of the difference. The results show that the mean points of color schemes using the proposed approach are higher than those using the probability-based method, and the corresponding P-values are far lower than .05, which suggests that the proposed approach is better than the probability-based method and can improve the sequential color scheme quality in automatic ways. The mean points of color schemes created using the proposed approach are also slightly higher than or similar to those of ColorBrewer, which are well-known map color schemes manually designed by an experienced cartographer. This result further suggests that the proposed approach can meet the requirement of automatic generation for high-quality sequential color schemes on maps.     

Pattern‐driven color pattern recognition for printed fabric motif design

Pattern‐driven design method is an important data‐driven design method for printed fabric motif design in textiles and clothing industry. We introduce a novel framework for automatic design of color patterns in real‐world fabric motif images. The novelty of our work is to formulate the recognition of an underlying color pattern element as a spatial, multi‐target tracking, classification, segmentation and similarity association process using a new and efficient color feature encoding method. The proposed design method is based on pattern‐driven color pattern recognition and indexing from the element image database. A series of color pattern recognition algorithms are used for color and pattern feature extraction. The local statistical corner features and Markov random field model are used for motif unit tiling detection and conversion. The color feature encoding problem is modeled in a gray‐scale color difference optimization problem, which can be solved quickly by existing algorithms. Color pattern feature matching, segmentation and indexing techniques are then used to locate and replace the elements in the motif unit image with similar elements in the database. Experiments show that the approach proposed in this study is effective for color pattern recognition and printed fabric motif design.     

A quantitative network model for color categorization

To clarify the higher‐order mechanism of human color perception, we measured the color appearances of 78 colored lights by an elemental color‐scaling method and by a categorical color naming method. The colors covered nearly the entire CIE 1931 xy‐chromaticity diagram with three different surrounds. The results showed that firm basic color zones derived by categorical color naming can be mapped with no overlap in an opponent‐color response space. We propose a network model with a threshold selector, maximum selectors, and multiplication units with gain factors to generate the categorical color responses quantitatively from the elemental color responses. The model can predict the categorical color naming results in different surround conditions with no change of parameters. This suggests that a nonlinear color vision mechanism for color categorization exists between the primary visual cortex (V1) and the inferior temporal cortex (IT) in the human brain. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 27, 225–232, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.10060     

Design and study of a color sensitivity function

If we study color reproduction, such as computer color matching or the appraisal of metametric index, we wish to understand the characteristic of color differences that are caused by the object spectral reflectivity change at each wavelength. If we simulate the light source, we wish to know the characteristics of color differences that are caused by change in relative power distribution of the light source at each wavelength; if we simulate a human eye instrument, we wish to know the characteristics of color differences that are caused by change in visual sense of human eyes at each wavelength. So, we define the color‐sensitivity functions of an object, a light source, and human eyes. According to the chromatic theory, the color‐sensitive functions of an object, a light source, and human eyes are defined in the widely used CIE1976 (L*a*b*) color space and color difference.¹ Their mathematical formulae are deduced. The three kinds of color‐sensitive functions are studied systematically and comprehensively in the whole color space. The characteristics of the color‐sensitive functions are summarized, and the mathematical models of the three kinds of color‐sensitive functions can be utilized in some fields such as computer color matching, simulation of a standard light source, and humans viewing a colorimeter. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 30, 118–124, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/col.20089