Ambient light in your editing environment ?

Hi,

 

I'm in the process of calibrating my monitor (ColorVision Photocal).

My current editing room is lit solely from above. Ceiling is at about

7'2". Lights are commercially available fluorescent tubes behind

2'/4' transluecent panels (office lighting). I'm seriously

considering using a homemade hood (out of black foam core) to cut

down on the wash that currently exists on my screen. I'm not running

color corrected tubes in the above lights -- must I? If so, where can

I get them. I doubt that my local Home Depot would have them. Guess

I'm wondering how most of you are addressing the ambient light issue

in your editing environment.

 

Thoughts?

 

Thanks. Kurt.

A good question--one more people should ask.

 

The most important thing about ambient light is that it be constant and even. If that is the case, then profiling and calibration can take care of the rest. Ideally, the ambient color temperature should be as close as possible to the monitor's color temperature. This makes the profile "better" because it will have to make less compensation.

 

I don't use special lights, but I create a profile for every type of light source (e.g., none, overcast, sunny, light bulb).

So where do you stand on the whole hood issue? I used to turn the lights off and I noticed that my onscreen image looked vastly different. I got the hood idea from a book I read. The onscreen image *pops* a bit more with the hood I've designed but the hood looks kind of ugly and make shift -- but it works. I'm trying to get into calibration/profiling on a budget and fear the 12 color corrected tubes I'd need for this room might break the bank. There is no outside light source -- so even though the above light is fluorescent it is even and constant. I'll be posting a bunch of other questions in an attempt to iron our this whole issue of monitor calibration/profiling. Please feel free to respond.

 

Thanks for taking the time.

A hood is good, of course (I don't have one). It kills two birds with one stone: it increases contrast, and it eliminates distraction.

 

Obviously contrast is greatest when there is no ambient light, but ouch, my eyes--forget about it!

Yeah I know what you mean about the eyes. Mom always told me not to watch TV in the dark! : )

 

The hood seems to work well enough. I think I can probably forgo the color corrected tubes.

Hoods can easily be made and attached to any monitor, I'd say go for it. I myself do most of my work with the shades closed, or at night with a single halogen torchiere (sp?) type light with a 120w flood light pointed at the ceiling. It provides good even illumination to elliminate eye strain, and i've had no qualms. Of course I'm a special case and rely very little on what my eyes tell me and more on what the numbers in photoshop are because i have absolutely terribly color vision. So I don't really need the best view of the screen, except for contrast adjustment. Color balance visually matters little, but in my efforts to match for print and web display I do keep everything calibrated.

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For my lighting I went to Home Depot and bought a $20 floor lamp. I then went here: <a href="http://www.1000bulbs.com/">http://www.1000bulbs.com/</a> and bought a bunch of 65watt and 50watt (equivalent) color-corrected (5100K) compact fluorescent bulbs. I ended up using the 65 watt equiv. in the floor lamp in the corner of my office. It provides semi-indirect light (it's more or less a torchiere) that is easy on the eyes but still allows a semi-color-correct ambient light. Best of all: the lamp and bulb were less than US$30.

 

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That having been said, you can get full-spectrum 4' fluorescent tubes at Home Depot for something like $8 a piece. They're made by GE and they're in an orange paper cover (with yellow lettering). They have a color temp of 5000K and a CRI of 90 IIRC.

Turn off all lights, close all blinds..........oh, it's almost like being back in a real darkroom!<p><a href="http://www.keithlaban.co.uk">www.keithlaban.co.uk</a>

It's not going to make any difference if the lighting is 5100K or not so don't waste your time with color corrected tubes etc. ANY light is going to wash out your monitor. I suppose a hood is useful but the right way is to work in subdued lighting, the less the better and it should be constant. Any editing environment that I've ever seen is operated this way.

The color corrected bulbs are very usefull in the monitor area if one is trying to match the colors of a physical sample by ones monitor. Also these bulbs are usefull in the printing area; and front counter area; if one has customers. Before we did this; color matching was a royal pain. To do professonal work one should strive to get some control in color matching.

Thanks everybody! The color corrected tubes seem a bit cost prohibitive. I like the idea of the Home Depot lamp with color corrected bulb. I could use only the lamp for critical work and keep the florescent lighting for my everyday web surfing/office work.

 

What I'm getting out of this is that the lighting is supposed to be on the dim side in my room. One lamp reflecting off the ceiling is certainly going to be different (in amount of light) than 12 florescent tubes. Guess we'll see if I go blind or not! I'm sure I can control things with how close I move the floor lamp to my monitor area.

 

Nicholas, thanks for the link to the 1001 bulb site.

 

Kurt

Kurt; when I relamped our printing; customer; and copier areas; I saved all the pull-out bulbs. These were then used as spares in warehouse areas; etc. It has taken many years to finally use up all the bulbs. The color corrected flourescents vary widely in price; and were once real expensive. Today they are much more reasonable in price. We have over 100 lamp fixtures; it requires a logbook to keep track of all the ballast types and bulbs. The Logbook has a page for each fixture; it was a pain at first; now it helps alot. When the better bulbs are a deal; I buy a wad of them. The fixures and covers fade with time too. The clear "no fade/HA!" clear covers get yellowed; and add yellow to teh lighting mix.

I've also got two 5" recessed lights in this room. I never use them and just had the thought about adding color corrected bulbs to them. Using them alone I do get a brighter screen with better contrast. But, I feel like I'm working in the dark! Plus I sometimes read a reference book (PhotoShop Shop Manual for one) and it's just too dark for that. All and all, I'm uncomfortable like this. Will this pass? Maybe I have it too dark.

I would turn off the flourescent lights. Get MR-16 Solux halogen lights. These bulbs are around 4700K and are closer to D50 than flourescent tubes. Less metamerism because they are closer to full spectrum. We use two bulbs on a track lighting mount and they work well for colour matching. Make sure that any light source does not spill or create glare on you monitor. Besides the monitor I would not have any other light source within your field of vision when your colour correcting. Keep the room almost completely dark and paint your walls neutral gray.

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<I>...One lamp reflecting off the ceiling is certainly going to be different (in amount of light) than 12 florescent tubes. Guess we'll see if I go blind or not! ...</I>

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Kurt,

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Don't worry too much about the "mother told me not to watch TV in the dark" thing because a properly profile monitor is often much dimmer than a "Windows at full blast 9600k" monitor. Yes, staring at a very bright monitor (or TV) in a dark room might be damaging if done for long periods, but you will probably be looking at what most people would consider a dim (but beautiful and accurate) monitor.

<a href="http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/11791.html">part 1</a> and <a href="http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/12054.html">part

2</a>

Very good. Thanks William.