To solve the problem that the traditional spectral matching algorithms have low accuracy in matching spectral data of different pigment materials in the same color system, we propose an adaptive threshold edit distance spectral matching algorithm. The edit distance is researched to improve the matching accuracy by using its characteristics of being sensitive to the spectral reflectance difference. At the same time, by adaptively setting the judging conditions of the edit distance, we reduce the error of this algorithm in matching the spectral data of the same pigment materials under different conditions. The results show that the matching accuracy of the adaptive edit distance algorithm is higher than that of the traditional spectral matching algorithms, and the recognition results of the adaptive edit distance algorithm for the pigment is better than that of the traditional algorithms.