Photo Color Correction

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial

Color Matching

Color matching online is not necessary for successful ecommerce. There are a few exceptions, one of which is cosmetics.

The online cosmetics industry represents millions of dollars. For a significant part of it to be successful, customers who buy beauty products like lipstick or nail polish need an accurate representation of color on their screen at the online beauty stores.

To see if any beauty stores which sell cosmetics online are getting it right, a comparison study was done of the advertised colors for the same product at several stores.

In this case study, the product was a popular nail polish color by a famous brand: Cherries in the Snow by Revlon.

There were different approaches to representation of the red Cherries in the Snow nail color by the manufacturer and the beauty stores.

The Revlon website used a graphic of a color swatch (see below, four across, five down).

One beauty store also used a graphic color swatch; another used an html-based color swatch; and another used a photograph.

Interestingly enough, nobody had the exact same color. Every beauty store had a different color from Revlon's website, although one was very close. Three were very different, and one wasn't even red.

It is certainly possible that everyone including the manufacturer had a different red from the true color on their websites, but it would be important to match the manufacturer's website if you can't get the correct color.

The diagram below shows the differences in color and how many do not match. Color is represented by html (table cell filled).