Colour Accurate Lighting

Make your prints look better than ever!

Increase the accuracy of your workflow!

Colour accurate lighting is fundamental to a colour managed workflow. If you are currently viewing your prints under standard tungsten globes (or even worse, standard fluorescents), then you're not seeing your prints as they really are.

Most common light sources have significant problems - either their colour temperature is too warm for a colour managed workflow (tungsten and halogen globes), or the lights have weird spectral spikes and gaps (fluorescent globes). This means that the light falling on your prints, and therefore back to your eye, is simply not the best lighting for judging the true colours of your prints.

Colour Management systems operate around the D50 reference light source - this is the light source that almost all printer profiles are built for, and is a very specific standard for lights - it defines the colour of the light (whitepoint) and the complete spectral output of the light (that is, how much of each wavelength (or colour) is being output by the light source). This very precise definition of light is chosen as the reference light source as it is a reflection of 'average' lighting condition - a mix of indoor and outdoor light, with a spectral output designed to match that of daylight, and be nearly uniform.

You can read (a lot) more about light sources, and setting up your working environment in the Digital Fine Print Notes. Specifically, Chapter One deals with setting up your work area, and Chapter Two discusses reference light sources.

When you view your prints under the reference light source, you will find your screen to monitor match is significantly better than viewing your prints under typical lights - you will also find your prints tend to look better than ever before!

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Setting up a print viewing area / booth

A print viewing booth is slick, professional, easy and unfortunately not cheap. However in a commercial environment these will look far superior to anything you're likely to be able to knock up easily for yourself, so they're definitely a good option. Displaying your work in one of these booths gives you the best chance to make sales as your work will never look better! It's what high end wedding photographers use (e.g I recently saw a photo of Marcus Bell's studio that had some very nice work displayed in a print viewing box and the effect was, as ever with Marcus, very slick).

If you'd prefer to set up a large print viewing area, have a look at the gallery notes below.

If you want to cheaply make your own print viewing booth, it's not too hard with standard halogen fittings and a standard transformer from electrical supply stores - there are some note in Chapter One of the Digital Fine Print notes.

Setting up your house lighting

The best lighting for your general house or office lighting - if colour accuracy and print viewing is an important part of your work - is , correct colour temperature light with an even spectral output.

In most modern homes and many offices, this is now easy to achieve, as most are now built with halogen downlight fittings. It's a simple matter of replacing your existing globes with Solux globes.

If you're room lighting is based on some other type of lighting, the you can at least install some task lighting using track based systems (available from lighting stores or even Ikea!) and put Solux globes in.

If your office home or office currently has fluorescent lighting, then you should source colour accurate high CRI full spectrum lighting - we don't currently sell these but there's some advice on which ones to go for in Chapter One of the Digital Fine Print notes. While these lights are much better than standard fluorescent lights, they are still quite some way off the quality of Solux Globes in terms of spectral output.

Setting up gallery lighting

Most photographic galleries set themselves up with track based lighting systems with low power halogens at 45 degree angles to prints. This is about the worst possible lighting scenario for a gallery and the display of prints - particularly prints behind glass, or prints on semi-gloss/gloss papers! The amount of glare and flare you get back in this scenario means your work is definitely not being displayed to its full potential.

You are far better off using high powered globes at a greater distance, or bounced off a white ceiling, to create bright but diffuse lighting conditions. This is how really good galleries display artworks as it's the most comfortable for the viewer, and you get no glare marks from your prints.

It's actually quite easy to set up - you simply need 50w halogen MR16 light fittings, available in a vast variety of styles from lighting stores and some furniture stores like Ikea. The trick is to have powerful lights that do NOT shine directly at the print but rather lift the ambient light level of your entire display area up to suitable levels. You can face the fittings up towards your ceiling or towards your side walls if they're painted a neutral white, or simply set the lights well back from the prints and at appropriate angles such that when any normal viewer is looking at your images they won't see flare spots.

Almost all galleries hang work too high as well - remember the ideal is for the top of the work to line up with eye level - so hang the work such that the top is at about 5'8" or about 170cm if you're aiming for the average Australian height! This means your lighting should not be too high as well!

Fill your halogen fittings with Solux globes and you can easily and cheaply set up an ideal display area for your work. Numerous studies have shown that good lighting can increase your sales significantly!