Resent Research on Color and Chromophores of the Skin: A Short Survey

Abstract

　People are frequently aware of our face and its skin in the daily lives. Therefore, their appearance has been an important research subject in some academic and industrial fields such as color science, vision, and cosmetics. Color of the skin is one of the key factors when traits of their appearance are discussed. Consequently, plenty of studies on the skin color and facial complexion have been enthusiastically carried out with taking into account unique physical and perceptual properties of the skin and face. Some of these studies clarified that color of the skin and face possesses interesting and peculiar secrets that are little known in other objects. Evaluation of skin chromophores such as melanin and hemoglobin is also important, especially when the skin appearance is discussed from the standpoint of skin physiology. For the purpose of this aspect, useful methods to quantify the level of skin choromophores from spectral reflectance data or spectral/RGB images were proposed. These methods have been contributing to deepening the comprehension of skin appearance. In this paper, some of interesting knowledge reported in the previous studies relating skin color and facial complexion, and methods for the quantification of skin chromophores are reviewed.