Scaling Lightness Perception and Differences Above and Below Diffuse White

The purpose of this research was to design and complete psychophysical experiments for scaling lightness and lightness differences for achromatic percepts above and below the lightness of diffuse white (L*=100). Below diffuse white experiments were conducted under reference conditions recommended by CIE for color difference research. Overall a range of CIELAB lightness values from 7 to 183 was investigated. Psychophysical techniques of partition scaling and constant stimuli were applied for scaling lightness perception and differences, respectively. The results indicate that the existing L* and CIEDE2000-weighting functions approximately predict the trends, but don't well fit the visual data. Hence, three optimized functions are proposed, including a lightness function, a lightness-difference weighting function for the wide range, and a lightness-difference weighting function for the range below diffuse white.