color prediction

["Shobe, Dave" <dshobe "at@at" sud-chemieinc.com>]

What calculations are necessary to predict the color of an organic pigment
 or a transition metal complex?  This has several subquestions, including:
 1. What level of theory is needed to get accurate electronic excitation
 energies?  I suppose this differs for organic and inorganic chromophores.
 2. Is the electronic excitation energy pretty much equal to lambda-max,
 after the usual unit conversions?  Or do factors like vibrational coupling
 come into play in a big way?
 3. To predict color you would need the entire absorption-vs.-wavelength
 plot, not just the lambda-max.  How does one get that?
 4. Once one has such a plot, how does one convert into a perceived color?
 How does this interact with lighting conditions?
 --David Shobe
 P.S. If any of you has usenet access (I don't), the last question might be
 more appropriate for sci.engr.color than here.  So feel free to forward it
 there.