Definition for word: CRI

Color Rendering Index. An international system used to rate a lamp's ability to render object colors. The higher the CRI (based upon a 0-100 scale) the richer colors generally appear.

Referrence from

The color rendering index (CRI) (sometimes called color rendition index), is a quantitative measure of the ability of a light source to reproduce the colors of various objects faithfully in comparison with an ideal or natural light source. Light sources with a high CRI are desirable in color-critical applications such as photography and cinematography. It is defined by the International Commission on Illumination as follows:

       Color rendering: Effect of an illuminant on the color appearance of objects by conscious or subconscious comparison with their color appearance under a reference illuminant

Note that the CRI by itself does not indicate what the color temperature of the reference light source is; therefore, it is customary to also cite the correlated color temperature (CCT).

According to (Schanda & Sándor 2005), CRI is being deprecated in favor of measures based on color appearance models, such as CIECAM02 and, for daylight simulators, the CIE Metamerism Index. (Guo & Houser 2004) and (CIE 1995) note that CRI is not a good indicator for use in visual assessment, especially for sources below 5000 kelvin (K).

A newer version of the CRI has been developed (R96a), but it has not replaced the better-known Ra (general color rendering index).

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