Method and apparatus for spectrophotometric characterization of turbid materials are provided. An incident light beam is used to illuminate a turbid material sample and optical signals of coherent reflectance, diffuse reflectance, collimated transmittance and diffuse transmittance are measured from the sample as functions of wavelength. The following optical parameters are determined as functions of wavelength for spectrophotometric characterization of the turbid material sample in the spectrum of interest: absorption coefficients μa, scattering coefficient μs, anisotropy factor g and real refractive index n.