The debate over the best optical geometry for color measurement dates back to the development of the first recording reflectance spectrophotometer. It is hypothetesized that a bidirectional geometry conforms best to the procedure used to inspect colored surface samples visually. This hypothesis was tested using two spectrophotometers of nearly identical design, one utilizing d/8 geometry and the other utilizing 0/45 geometry. The results indicate that bidirectional geometry may by superior to integrating-sphere geometry when matching standards with varying gloss. The bidirectional measurements are quite sensitive to the size of the source and the detector-aperture half angle.