How to Pick the Ideal Color Measurement Tool for Consistent Color & Surface Appearance

There’s an established fact in the manufacturing world: customers usually judge products by their looks first, not their performance.

Customers often look at the coating of a product, the color of a component, and the product’s visual characteristics before experiencing the coating’s quality and the component’s functionality. Customers even give their quality judgment in a matter of seconds.

Because of this, color measurement has evolved from a quality measurement task into an important manufacturing task. Despite this recent evolution, most color measurement tasks are still performed with the intent of answering a single question: which tool measures color most accurately?

That question should be changed to: which tool measures my product’s complete visual appearance?

To answer that question, it must be understood that color is one small piece to a large visual appearance puzzle.

The Hidden Challenge Behind Color Consistency

A big number of manufacturers believe that products displaying the same color value will also have the same visual appearance. This is a belief that will most likely be proven to be incorrect and expensive.

Picture in your mind two plastic parts that have the same color reading. One of them has a high gloss finish and the other has a low gloss, or matte, finish. Even under the same lighting conditions, customers will see the two parts as having different colors, even though the two parts have the same color reading.

There are many elements that affect visual appearance that are not color. Surface finish, gloss level, translucency, haze, and even the shape of the object all affect how color is perceived.

This explains why holding the color of a product isn't enough and why modern quality control puts more emphasis on managing the product's appearance.

The best measurement strategy starts with knowing exactly what you want to manage.

Start with the Product, Not the Instrument

An example of a bad measurement strategy in color management is the assumption that you need to create an evaluation mechanism out of the best tools, when in fact, the evaluation mechanism is derived from the product.

Different surfaces require different color measurement tools. A flat, opaque surface will require a different tool than a curved, textured, transparent surface.

Some of the most important questions to ask for the correct measurement tool include:

● Is the product flat or three-dimensional?

● Is the surface smooth, textured, glossy, or matte?

● Is the material opaque, translucent, or transparent?

● Does the product require contact measurement or non-contact measurement?

● Will appearance aspects (texture, defects, etc.) need to be assessed with color?

This will form the basis for the correct measurement tool. If this analysis is not done, even the best, most precise measurement tool will give no value. The focus of most color management processes in industry is that measurement systems should include gloss, translucency, texture, and other appearance features since they will most likely determine the perceived quality of the product.

When a Colorimeter Is the Right Choice

For a lot of companies, colorimeters are the best tool to start for more objective color management.

Colorimeters are excellent tools for measuring product color as they do it quickly, efficiently, and reliably. They are ideal for day to day quality assessments and color measurement systems.

In textile, plastic, packaging, and consumer goods industries, colorimeters help and assist operators to check and verify if products fall within the approved color tolerances. Colorimeters are simple enough to allow frequent measurements on the production floor. A colorimeter can shift your reliance from visual assessments to recorded data across production shifts. Colorimeters have a limitation, they concern color values only. If product acceptance is based on other visual assessments (like texture, gloss, surface flaws, etc.), then a colorimeter will not suffice.

When Spectrophotometers are a Must

Many companies are moving to another level from relying on color value measurement to rely on spectrometric measurements. Spectophotometers allow the measurement of color and aid in assessing how a product will look in varying light conditions. This is important for manufacturing industries which deal with products that are visually assessed and color measurement that can have a huge impact on their business, like automotive paints, high value plastic products, and coatings.

Color and appearance assessments can be measured more easily and accurately with the help of modern spectrophotometers and these allow better collaboration with suppliers all over the world.

Why Surface Appearance Can No Longer Be Ignored

Reliability and color assessments can aid in branding and compliance with laws and regulations, and can make or break a business.

Modern quality assurance no longer treats color in isolation when assessing a product's visual appearance. Even if a product is a perfect match to a target color, it can still be rejected for having gloss variation, surface inconsistency, contamination, and texture defects.

Products in plastics, coatings, packaging, automotive, and electronics frequently experience issues like these. Most customers think about color and surface appearance together during their assessment, so they will likely approve or reject a product for either reason.

Because of this, manufacturers create systems to assess multiple visual elements of a product, and capture those elements in the same workflow.

Modern appearance measurement systems go beyond capturing color to assess the distribution of color, the evenness of surface texture, gloss, and other visual defects. These systems also measure product quality compared to traditional color measurement systems, and are being adopted to a greater extent in the evaluation of plastics, coatings, and packaging where the effect of perceived quality is greatest.

The Growing Value of Non-Contact Measurement

While older measurement systems which require physical contact are still applicable to a majority of use cases, modern manufacturing is posing challenges to traditional measurement methods.

Non-Contact measurement systems are applicable to manufacturing surfaces with a delicate or soft texture, contain sharp edges, or are of irregular geometry.

With these systems, manufacturers are able to measure color and appearance of an entire surface as opposed to making assessments based on measurements of a single point.

With a wider perspective, manufacturers can see defects and inconsistencies that the systems which assess a single point would not be able to capture.

This is especially applicable to products where visual uniformity is of paramount importance.

Non-Contact measurement systems allow manufacturers to employ digital systems which require or benefit from measuring color and appearance of a surface, and assess a product without being physically present. Systems based on modern Non-Contact measurement systems and digital systems are developed to objectively measure color and surface appearance, and to seamlessly embed and enhance communication in global supply chains.

Standardized Lighting: Why It's Actually a Big Deal

Not even the most high-tech tools can give you the results you need if you take the measurements in poorly lit areas.

Color really only exists in the mind of the observer when the right lighting interacts with the right object. You can change any of those three elements and the color can change too.

This is the reason why a product can look fine on the factory floor but totally different when it's on the store shelf.

Standardized lighting helps reduce this problem.

Manufacturers that use measurement tools and develop a controlled viewing environment have a better quality control process as a result. For color evaluation and consistency, standardized lighting is very important.

Buy with Growth in Mind

A highly specified instrument is not the ideal color measurement tool. The best tool is the one that meets the current production needs, leaving room for flexibility in the growth of the company.

With advanced products and heightened expectations, controlling the look of a product will be a determining factor in a company's success.

The most progressive companies have the most comprehensive systems of appearance controls and the most advanced tools, whether it be a colorimeter, spectrophotometer, gloss meter, or a complete digital appearance assessment systems. The goal is the same across the board: seamless delivery to the customer.

At the end of the day, the right color measurement tool is not for measuring color.