The Ideal Room With A View

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30 years ago, just about every home was lit by traditional tungsten light bulbs, which give off a warm, reddish/yellow light. No one noticed it as red unless someone happened to take a picture indoors, without a flash. The picture would come back from the film processor with a very warm cast. If something similar happened in an office environment, the pictures would come back with a green tint. Nothing was wrong with the processing of these pictures: they were actually a perfect example of how dramatically chromatic adaptation works within the human brain. The photographs were showing what the environmental lighting actually looked like as recorded by the daylight balanced camera film; the reason they appeared different than expected was because individuals' perceptions were, unbeknownst to them, affected by chromatic adaptation. Similar experiments can be done with the manual settings on a modern camera with white balance turned off. Chromatic adaptation enables us to move between different lighting sources and see them as "normal."
30 years ago, just about every home was lit by traditional tungsten light bulbs, which give off a warm, reddish/yellow light. No one noticed it as red unless someone happened to take a picture indoors, without a flash. The picture would come back from the film processor with a very warm cast. If something similar happened in an office environment, the pictures would come back with a green tint. Nothing was wrong with the processing of these pictures: they were actually a perfect example of how dramatically chromatic adaptation works within the human brain. The photographs were showing what the environmental lighting actually looked like as recorded by the daylight balanced camera film; the reason they appeared different than expected was because individuals' perceptions were, unbeknownst to them, affected by chromatic adaptation. Similar experiments can be done with the manual settings on a modern camera with white balance turned off. Chromatic adaptation enables us to move between different lighting sources and see them as "normal."
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In this day and age, your environment's light sources are even more varied. Besides the remnants of tungsten and F1 fluorescents that still remain, there are halogen lamps, fluorescents, and of course, LED lighting options in all shapes and colors. While our eyes and brains easily adapt to these different lights, artificial lighting can hide or exaggerate subtle color issues when we?re taking a serious look at prints.
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In this day and age, your environment's light sources are even more varied. Besides the remnants of tungsten and F1 fluorescents that still remain, there are halogen lamps, fluorescents, and of course, LED lighting options in all shapes and colors. While our eyes and brains easily adapt to these different lights, artificial lighting can hide or exaggerate subtle color issues when we're taking a serious look at prints.
==Viewing Booths==
==Viewing Booths==

Revision as of 17:07, 25 June 2019

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This reserved article originally appeared in CHROMiX ColorNews Issue 68 on April 25th, 2019.

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The environment in which we view a finished printed product is a piece of the color management puzzle too often overlooked. When holding a printed piece of paper in your hands, it is easy to think that it's the end of the story. Yet, the light used to illuminate that print is a vital component of how the color on the page is perceived. If you doubt me, take that print into the closet with the light off, and then tell me what color it is!


Let's review some basic color theory. When we see color, we are seeing light waves from a light source bouncing off of a surface and reflecting into our eyes, where our brains interpret these signals as colors. Rather than thinking that the object itself is the source of its color, it's vital to remember that the color of the object is largely dependent on the light waves striking the object to begin with.

One of the reasons we so easily take color and light for granted is because of chromatic adaptation.

Chromatic adaptation

Chromatic adaptation refers to the way our eyes "white balance" to the light source in our environment. Not merely a fun term to throw around at cocktail parties, chromatic adaptation is essential to understanding how our eyes view objects. Our eyes are not merely biological spectrophotometers that see and determine color. Our brains do an awful lot of automatic, subconscious color correction. Without chromatic adaptation, we would have a mess of a time trying to recognize consistent hues across different lighting situations.

30 years ago, just about every home was lit by traditional tungsten light bulbs, which give off a warm, reddish/yellow light. No one noticed it as red unless someone happened to take a picture indoors, without a flash. The picture would come back from the film processor with a very warm cast. If something similar happened in an office environment, the pictures would come back with a green tint. Nothing was wrong with the processing of these pictures: they were actually a perfect example of how dramatically chromatic adaptation works within the human brain. The photographs were showing what the environmental lighting actually looked like as recorded by the daylight balanced camera film; the reason they appeared different than expected was because individuals' perceptions were, unbeknownst to them, affected by chromatic adaptation. Similar experiments can be done with the manual settings on a modern camera with white balance turned off. Chromatic adaptation enables us to move between different lighting sources and see them as "normal."

In this day and age, your environment's light sources are even more varied. Besides the remnants of tungsten and F1 fluorescents that still remain, there are halogen lamps, fluorescents, and of course, LED lighting options in all shapes and colors. While our eyes and brains easily adapt to these different lights, artificial lighting can hide or exaggerate subtle color issues when we're taking a serious look at prints.

Viewing Booths

This dilemma is why viewing booths were invented. Color-critical workflows require some kind of controlled, verified space where you can trust that printed output is viewed in correct light. These booths or stands come in various sizes so you can place large or small printed material within and be assured that the light you're viewing is an accurate representation of the color, which is usually standardized to D50 daylight. Since the adoption of ISO 3664, viewing booths also include a consistent amount of UV light so these booths can more accurately imitate natural daylight. The print and graphic arts industry tends to use D50 as its standard illuminant of choice. D65 is a slightly cooler version of daylight that many in the textile and manufacturing world prefer.

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