During pulsed laser treatments of portwine stain lesions and other vascular lesions, the heat deposition in the epidermis is a limiting factor.
Epidermal pigmentation can be pertinent to laser removal of tattoos and laser hair removal as well.
Kollias and Baqer made measurements on a pigmented skin site and on a nearby vitiligo site which is devoid of melanin pigment. So the ratio of true reflectances is obtained, and they differ only by the effect of the pigmented epidermis. The following figure illustrates the OD attributed to the pigmented epidermis. Figure A compares a normal pigmented skin site and a vitiligo site. In vivo spectrometer measurements of pigmented epidermis.