We compare two methods for the optical characterization of turbid media. The estimates of the absorption and reduced scattering coefficients ( ${\mu }_a$ and ${\mu }_s^{\prime }$ ) by a spatially resolved method and a time-resolved method are performed on tissue-like phantoms. Aqueous suspension of microspheres and Intralipid are used as scattering media with the addition of ink as an absorber. ${\mu }_s^{\prime }$ is first measured on weakly absorbing media. The robustness of these measurements is then tested with respect to a variation of ${\mu }_a$ . The spatially resolved method gave more accurate estimates for ${\mu }_s^{\prime }$ whereas the time-resolved method gave better results for ${\mu }_a$ estimates.