The dye molecule in a saturated hydrocarbon solvent (instead of the vacuum) is taken as reference state; the sigma-electrons of solute and solvent are treated as a continuous medium of dielectric constant epsilon(0) = 2. The pi-electrons of the solute are assumed to be immersed in this medium. Solvent shifts of absorption and fluorescence are calculated from known ground and excited state dipole moments and polarizabilities of solute and dielectric constant and refractive index of solvent.