Spectrometer, the Equipment to Check the Color

Spectrometer (spectrophotometer) is an instrument for measuring color. This tool is used to help people to check the color. This device is quite common used in industries that deal with color, such as printing, textiles, garments, and finishing materials. Lately, this tool is also used in the furniture industry and wood finishing industry.
This tool was created to help people check the color. At the beginning, the checking of colors was visually done by humans. In the industries that deal with color, there is a QC person that works to check the color to make sure the production is constantly stable. But then people started to realize that checking color by human being could lead to the inconsistency problem.

Here are some disadvantages of color observation by human beings.

• Every person has different sensitivity to the color.

The fact is every person has different sensitivity to see the color; some people may have high sensitivity to the green color, while some other people could be more sensitive to the red color, etc., some certain people even cannot distinguish some certain colors (the color blind people). In the manufacturing process, it could become a problem. If we have some (more than one) QC to keep the production quality, then every QC person could give different result. The person who is highly sensitive will find the difference that cannot be viewed by the people with less sensitivity. This condition, of course, cannot be accepted in the manufacturing industries that need the stability of their production. The industry needs to get the same product every time, no matter who is doing the production and QC.

• Evaluating color by humans is strongly influenced by mood and feeling.

Many studies prove that the color can affect the person's mood and feelings. This fact also works the opposite way; how humans see the color is highly influenced by one’s mood and feeling. It means that the color evaluation by humans tends to give nonstandard results.

• The color looked highly influenced by the environmental conditions.

Most objects do not have their own light but reflect the rays that come to them. The visible color from an object actually is the result of light with certain wavelengths reflected by the object, while the other wavelength is absorbed by the object. The lights that come to the object will highly determine the color of the object. The same object can have different colors when it is viewed in the different place. The color of the object will change if the object is viewed in the inside room or outside room. The color variation is also found if we check the color at different times, such as in the morning, afternoon, or evening, when the day is light, or on a rainy day.

From the explanation above, we can see that checking color manually could result in an inaccurate and unstable result. To help people to check and view color, then the tooling industry has created the device to measure and observe the color that is called as spectrometer. .The device is used to help people to check and measure the color. The device will give some number as the quantitative result for the measured object. As a machine, spectrometer also gives accurate, consistent, and standard results.

How to use spectrometer.

The spectrometer measures the color in three dimensional aspects that is shown in the three perpendicular axis; L (lightness), a (degree of red and green color), and b (degree of yellow and purple color). See the picture below:

L axis (lightness) is the color strength. It is represented in the vertical axis. It is shown by a number ranging from 0 as the black color to +100 as the white color.

A axis is the red and green color. It is represented in the horizontal axis. It is started from the -100 number as the green color to the +100 as the red color.

B is the yellow and purple color. It is represented by another horizontal axis. Started with -100 as the blue to +100 for the yellow color.

The spectrometer measures the color of the object and results in three numbers that express the degree of the color. From the figures, we can determine the color of the object being measured. For example, from the measurement, we got the result as follows: L  (lightness): 10, a (redness): 20, and b (yellowness): -25. From the number, we can determine that the color is light red and blue brown.

A spectrometer can also be used to compare the color of the product with the standard. When we use the spectrometer to compare two or more color panels, then he will give three numbers as the deviation result.

Things to consider when using a spectrometer

• Wood vareation 

Wood has a variety of base colors, grains, and pores that will affect the measuring result. Therefore, using this tool for wood finishing may result in different measurement figures, even though the finishing process has been carried out using the same method and material. The visualization will be more complex if you do antique finishing, distressed, or rustic when the surface is manipulated to make special look. In that finished, the color machine measurement may not be accurate because of the surface condition. 

• The furniture looks

Color is indeed an important element for wood furniture products. But actually, in the wooden furniture, color variations are quite normal, as long as the whole product has a uniform and harmonious look. If a piece of furniture has the same color in every part, then it will actually lose its identity as a wood product. In the end, the users of wood products will never measure their products using measuring instruments but will see the product as a complete unit, which includes appearance, color, and other aspects. At the end, human observation is a better decision than measuring instruments