Many attempts have been made to standardize the calculation of whiteness. Whiteness formulas currently in use satisfactorily characterize the appearance of commercial whiteness. However, they have poor correlations with the observers' evaluations, and are often unsuccessful in assessing tinted white samples. A whiteness formula in the CIELAB uniform color space is developed in this paper. Several whiteness formulas are analyzed and compared. The experimental results show that the whiteness formula in the CIELAB uniform color space agrees well with the visual ranking, and it is superior to the CIE whiteness formula and the others in visual correlativity, uniformity and applicability.