The CMC, BFD, and CIE94 color-difference formulas have been compared throughout their weighting functions to the CIELAB components Delta L*, Delta C*, Delta H*, and from their performance with respect to several wide datasets from old and recent literature. Predicting the magnitude of perceived color differences, a statistically significant improvement upon CIELAB should be recognized for these three formulas, in particular for CIE94. (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.