Shade determination for restorations has always been a challenging aspect of esthetic dentistry. This in- vitro study compared the shade matching abilities of an intra-oral spectrophotometer and the conventional visual method using two shade guides. Results revealed that visual method had greater accuracy than the spectrophotometer. The spectrophotometer, however exhibited significantly better inter rater agreement as compared to the visual method. Comparison between visual and instrumental methods revealed the pros and cons of both methods. While the spectrophotometric system does not solve...