Colorimetric characterization is to transform the device-dependent responses to device-independent colorimetric values, and is usually conducted in CIEXYZ space. However, the optimal solution in CIEXYZ space does not mean the mini-mization of perceptual error. A novel method for colorimetric characterization of imaging device based on the minimization of total color difference is proposed. The method builds the transform between RGB space and CIELAB space directly using the downhill simplex algorithm. Experimental results showed that the proposed method performs better than traditional least-square (LS) and total-least-square (TLS) methods, especially for colors with low luminance values. Colorimetric characterization is to transform the device-dependent responses to device-independent colorimetric values, and is usually conducted in CIEXYZ space. However, the optimal solution in CIEXYZ space does not mean the mini-mization of perceptual error. A novel method for colorimetric characterization of imaging devices based on the minimization of total color difference is proposed. The method builds the transform between RGB space and CIELAB space directly using the downhill simplex algorithm. Experimental results showed that the proposed method performs better than traditional least-square (LS) and total-least-square (TLS) methods, especially for colors with low luminance values.