Abstract: The use of colour devices for research and industrial purposes has a great disadvantage, its price, this equipment is very expensive. Nowadays, digital colour imaging systems process electronic information from various sources, and a vast variety of image processing algorithms could be applied to the images. The aim of this work was to find a versatile technique to measure colour, using an inexpensive colour device (desktop scanner) for date palm. The method of Digitalization with Dark Ring (DDR method) is put forward. The images captured with the scanner were filed in TIFF format converting the space capturer sRGB to space colour CIELAB. Colour corresponding to different colour ranges during growth and maturity of the date palm has been characterized. The coefficient of simple determination (r2) for the colour co-ordinates; lightness (L*), red-green (a*) and yellow-blue (b*) were 0.942, 0.951 and 0.801 respectively. For the determination of the co-ordinate b* by means of DDR method, two different equations must be used depending whether the organoleptic maturity of the fruit has been reached or not.