Colour Certification by Broad Band

V. Cappellini, A. Abrardo, M. Lunghi, A. Nozzoli, A. Mecocci, O. Casazza and P. De Rocco

University of Florence and the Uffizi Gallery

In this paper a method to improve the colour accuracy of photographic reproduction of art-works acquired from commercial scanners is described. Currently there exists a wide range of colour scanners. Most low-end devices such as colour desk-top scanners use three channels to acquire images. Many high-end scanners, which obtain very high colour accuracy, use more than three channels. Two images, acquired from two different equipments, are then characterised by a different colour reproduction accuracy and spatial resolution as well. In this paper is described a new method to correct the colours of photographic reproduction of paintings acquired from commercial scanners by comparing them with high colour accuracy reproductions of the same paintings obtained by high-end devices. Furthermore, a client-server application which provides a service of colour correction to any remote host connected to a broad band network, is proposed.