The difference or distance between two color palettes is a metric of interest in color science. It allows a quantified examination of a perception that formerly could only be described with adjectives. Quantification of these properties is of great importance. The objective of this research is to obtain the dataset for perceptual colour difference between two color palettes and develop color difference metric(s) to correspond well with the perceptual color difference. The psychophysical experiment was carried out using Magnitude Estimation method. Three different color difference metrics, namely Single Color Difference Model (Modell), Mean Color Difference Model (Model 2), and Minimum Color Difference Model (Model 3), respectively, have been proposed and compared. Data analysis include regression analysis, statistical STRESS analysis, and examination of observer variability using coefficient of variance (CT). The results show that the Minimum Color Difference Model (Model 3) outperformed the other two with a coefficient of determination (R-squared) value of 0.603 and an STRESS value of 20.95. In terms of observer variability, the average intra-observer variability is 17.63 while the average inter-observer variability is 53.73.
Qianqian Pan, Stephen Westland, "Comparative Evaluation of Color Differences between Color Palettes" in Proc. IS&T 26th Color and Imaging Conf., 2018, pp 110 - 115, https://doi.org/10.2352/ISSN.2169-2629.2018.26.110