Abstract: This research reported the results of discrimination of color difference of surface color, Three color attributes-hue, brightness and saturation were investigated in this study respectively. The results indicated that the changes of the character of hue, brightness and saturation had influence in discrimination of color difference of surface color, the value of discrimination of color difference(△E)only changed with the difference of sensation level.Comparing the results of chromatic color with the achromatic color, it was found that the values of △E of various sensation level of chromatic color system were higher than that of the values of △E of achromatic color system.According to these results,the author suggested that color tolerances of samples of the chromatic color system and achromatic color system in the Chinese Color System were:achromatic color system △E<1.5; chromatic color system △E<3.0. These technique data were already used for color tolerances of color samples in the Chinese Color System.

Key words: surface color, color difference, tolerance, Chinese color system