Effect of Lightness on Blackness Preference of Black Fabrics

In this paper, the effect of lightness on blackness preference of 216 black fabrics prepared by printing method is investigated. Ten observers including five males and five females are first asked to rank order black fabrics with the same lightness values according to their preference. In the next step, observers are asked to define their blackness preference for blacks with different L* values. Results show that while there are some neutral black fabrics, observers mostly prefer bluish-cyanish blacks. Besides, samples with the higher values of lightness and chroma are not preferred by observers especially when their hue angles lie in the first quarter of the hue area, i.e., 0-90o. Meanwhile, samples with the lowest lightness values are not preferred by most of observers because of their high chroma values. This achievement proves that lightness is not the only colorimetric attributes which influences blackness preference.