I switched our spectro from d/8 UV-included to 45/0 on recycled cotton heathers, and delta E00 went from about 1.3 to 2.9 on the same drawdowns (D65/10°, 9 mm aperture). Is 45/0 giving you a truer read on visual texture, or do you stick with d/8 and lean harder on pigment QC — tighter phthalo grind (<10 µm) and rejecting red-shade lots?
On recycled cotton heathers, 45/0 tracks what eyes see better, which is why your dE00 jumped to about 2.9 at D65/10° with a 9 mm port. > stick with d/8 and lean harder on pigment QC — tighter phthalo grind (<10 µm) I’d only do that if you flip d/8 to SCE and average 8–10 reads with rotation; otherwise SCI masks the texture contrast. If you stay 45/0, set spot-averaging and split tolerances (tighter ΔC*, looser ΔL*) so you’re not chasing yarn shade noise — does that fit your lab cadence?
I’ve had better luck keeping 45/0, but only after averaging 8 reads with the swatch rotated 90° each time and a black backer under the card; at “D65/10°, 9 mm aperture” that pulled our heather drawdowns from about 3.0 E00 to about 1.8 without touching the phthalo grind. Small caveat: we also capture a companion d/8 SCI number so we can compare to supplier data. Are you rotating between shots or just taking a single spot?
We kept 45/0 but re-baselined pass/fail to 2.6 by paneling about 40 heather cards and fitting dE00 to what the panel called same/different; complaints dropped — @mayaF21, do you still capture a companion d/8 SCI just for supplier alignment?