The 6th Spanish Color Congress was held in Sevilla (Spain), September 11-13, 2002. This meeting brought together over 160 scientists from a wide variety of disciplines to share recent experiences in color science, technology and applications. The state-of-the-art research related to these topics was discussed in plenary lectures, workshops and poster sessions. The plenary presentations included traditional topics that served to place the meeting in an historical context. Some examples are, "The International Commission on Illumination and Colorimetry" by Dr. Antonio de la Cruz (Spain), and "Color in Art", a personal view on the evolution of the color-concept through history, by the Cuban painter Waldo Balart. Current topics such as "Expectations, Food Colorimetry and Digital Analysis" by Dr. John Hutchings, and "Trends in Color Science Research and Publishing" by Dr. Ellen Carter focused our attention towards the most recent research on color science and applications. It should be mentioned that a new Spanish Color Vocabulary was presented by Dr. de la Cruz.
These comprehensive plenaries were complemented by 30 oral presentations and over 100 posters grouped into seven thematic areas: Basic Colorimetry, Color Vision, Color and Imaging, Color in Art, Color and Education, Industrial Colorimetry and Color in Foods. Contributions ranged from methodological aspects of color measurement (Physics), to physiological aspects of color vision (Physiology), to innovative aspects of color in art or education. It should be emphasized that research on human response to colors is an area of increasing interest, as well as the analysis of color preferences. A high number of contributions were dealing with different aspects of color in foods related to its composition, its characterization, consumer preferences, etc. The proceedings of this successful conference together with the Spanish Color Vocabulary were distributed to all participants and can also be viewed on the web page of the Color & Quality Group (www.color.us.es).