Abstract: A short-wave-pass optical filter, including a partially absorbing or transparent substrate coated by a set of layers having different quarter-wave optical thicknesses, which is designed to reflect visible radiation of a selected color white transmitting visible radiation and maintaining a neutral color balance. The inventive filter is designed so that the desired reflected color (and the transmitted neutral color balance) is substantially independent of viewing angle (i.e., the incidence angle). In a preferred embodiment, the substrate is composed of UV-absorbing glass, and the coating is substantially a double quarter-wave stack of alternating layers of SiO.sub.2 and TiO.sub.2, TiO or Ti.sub.2 O.sub.3. The reflectance of the inventive filter (as a function of wavelength) is designed to have a ripple in at least one segment of the visible spectrum, but to have no significant ripples in all other segments of the visible spectrum.