Textile Glossary

Spectral colors

Definition

Spectral colors (also called light colors) include red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet.

Use in the textile industry

In the textile industry, spectral colors play an important role in color control and quality assurance, because the perceived color of a textile depends on the spectral components of the illuminating light that are reflected by the material. In colorfastness testing and color formulation, the spectral composition of the ambient light is taken into account to avoid metamerism — that is, color shifts that occur under different light sources. Standardized illuminants such as daylight or artificial light are therefore used in light booths to ensure reproducible color assessment.

Learn textile knowledge in context

You have just looked up a single technical term. In textil trainer, you learn how textile materials, processes, and contexts are connected.

The free learning platform teaches textile fundamentals step by step in interactive online courses. Each online course includes its own glossary with the most important terms of the respective topic. Across all courses, more than 600 textile terms with narrated explanations are available.

textil trainer is developed together with the Chair of Textile Technologies at Chemnitz University of Technology, chemmedia AG, and companies and educational institutions from the textile sector.

Register for free and access all online courses

Learn more about the project

Frequently asked question

Spectral colors are produced by the direct emission or decomposition of light into its spectral components and combine additively — that is, all spectral colors together produce white light. Object colors, by contrast, are produced by the selective absorption and reflection of light at a surface or by colorants within a material; their mixing follows subtractive laws. For textile dyeing, object colors are the determining factor, since dyes and pigments absorb specific wavelengths of light and thereby create the visible color appearance of a woven fabric.

View the entire glossary