Portable colorimeter

A handheld colorimeter for measuring the color of an object, comprising:

• a plurality of light emitters, each with distinct color spectra, wherein the emission of each color is modulated at a specific frequency;
• at least one light sensor which samples light reflected from an object illuminated by said light emitters, wherein the rate of sampling is at least twice the modulation frequency of the emitted light;
• a microprocessor which computes the fourier transform of the intensity of the reflected light over time, wherein the fourier transform provides the light intensity at each possible modulation frequency and determines the relative contribution of the reflected light from each light emitter;
• a calculating component which calculates a color value based on the fourier transform of the reflected light;
• a mapping component which maps the color value to a list of color values and selects a color name from the list that matches the composite color value;
• and
• a presenting component which presents the color name to a user.