In order to carry on reasonable paint color matching programme,and optimize the paint technology of wood products,polyurethane(PU) lacquer was chosen that is widely used in furniture industry,and ten wood species were chosen to be painted with the clear coating.Visual parameters on color and gloss of coated wood were quantitatively tested and characterized by spectrophotometer and chromaticity indices,and textural feature parameters were quantitatively measured with digital image processing technique.Then the influence of PU lacquer on visual characteristics of wood,before,during and after applying clear coating were analyzed.Three conclusions were drawn as below.First,during application,the brightness of varnish film was reduced sharply,the saturation was raised by 7%,the chromaticity indexes at red to green axis and yellow to blue axis increased by about 6%,while delta hue changed by 2.4%,and overall color difference reached(19.6%.) Second,the gloss of varnish film significantly rose,especially after lacquer primer,which could shoot up to four times,but declined after finish lacquer.Third,angular second moment and long run emphasis of wood grain increased,while contrast and fractal dimension decreased indicating that PU lacquer could make wood surface have even and exquisite texture,and weak contrast of texture.