Colour Accurate Imaging of Artworks using Custom Colour Reference Target for Digital Camera Characterization

When characterizing digital camera for capturing art paintings, the standard targets are often used, resulting in unacceptable differences in reproducing some special colours, so lots of time must be spent in visual editing and colour adjusting in various software applications. To avoid the need for excessive colour editing, and to improve workflow efficiency and colour accuracy, the special colour reference target for digital camera characterization was developed, applied and tested in these research. The object of digitalization was paintings made with gouache paint, so custom gouache reference target (named CGRT) was created for colour accurate digital camera characterization. The results shows that the differences in the colorants (pigments) used and different surface characteristics of the colour reference target used for camera characterization may contribute to the colour difference. The best results can be achieved using reference target with colour samples that have similar spectral properties as colours on paintings being photographed.