Question: Would one 50W bulb provide the right light intensity levels you mention in your response, assuming I darken the room? Would the 35W bulb be a better choice?

(I’m also thinking that if this would be a good set-up for my home work area, it could also work for our camera club, as the clamp-on fixtures would work with our display easel, and the judging is always done in a darken room.)

I hate to say that your current setup is the worst you can use to critically judge photographs, although it is commonly used at camera clubs and many wedding and portrait competitions. The problem is that the intensity is too bright, which makes prints with a correct density look washed out. Ansel Adams recommended around 100 foot candles falling on the print as the best viewing light. Most museums exhibit at about 10 foot candles, and your setup is probably about 1000+ foot candles!!!

I can see a difference even between 100 and 200 footcandles, and the more intense the light, the darker you will try to print to overcome it.

My take is for viewing enjoyment is to use a tungsten bulb of about 3200K.

Judging your “color management skills” is more complex than the right light becasue there are so many factors that come into play, but viewing prints next to a monitor with a 4700K solux bulb is a first step.

I’ve learned so much from your website and your writing. Thank you.

What brand of desk lamp can you recommend for holding the SoLux 4700K bulb and the 3200K gallery bulb?

This brings up an interesting issue for me. I am an active member of a few camera clubs which hold monthly critique and competition sessions. Usually, an image is placed on an easel and lit with a light from one of those clamp-on utility lamps one might use in the garage. Bulbs are standard household bulbs (although they sometimes vary from standard to “soft-white” to whatever was last purchased; consistency has not always been a strong point).

My question is: what might be the “best” light source for this type of situation? We want our prints to display at their best, while at the same time, we want to be able to determine if we are doing a good job with mastering our color management skills. Any thoughts?

The math doesn’t seem to work out, but many color professionals have discovered that if you calibrate a monitor to 6500K, it gives a better match to a print in 5000K light than when you calibrate your monitor to 5000K. It can also vary by monitor, so try it out and see how it works. 6500K will render blues more accurately on most screens, 5000K will yellow up the blues but show reds and warm colors more accurate to the print. You have to decide where you want the bias. (And splitting the difference at 5700K doesn’t necessarily split the difference!)

Can you ‘splain this to me more better?

Thanks, Scott

The purpose of 4700K SoLux lamps is so you can hold the print next to the monitor and compare the screen to the print.

Prints look different under different light, and images on monitors look different depending on the whitepoint that they are calibrated to.

Check out the COLOR RENDITION DEMONSTRATOR http://www.gtilite.com/color-rendition-demonstrators.htm from GTI for a great demonstration of this. You can find these units at many Lowes Home Improvement stores for comparing paint samples if you want to see it in person…it’s a very dramatic demonstration.

Therefore, if you want to hold a print next to your monitor to compare the two, you have to have similar color temperatures for the light on the print and the whitepoint of the display. If you don’t do this, you can’t trust your eyes, even if they appear to match. In other words, if you have standard florescent lighting or standard incandescent lighting on your print, you can’t trust what you see. (And they probably won’t match anyway.)

If you want to trust what you see, you need to light the print with 4700K SoLux when holding it next to the monitor. Even then, it’s not perfect, but it’s much closer than any other solution.

I understand wanting to make the screen look as close as possible to the proof; that’s called calibrating the monitor. I understand wanting to see how the proof will look in a gallery. That’s common sense. But making the proof look like it’s on a screen — that I don’t understand.

I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, only that I quite literally do not understand it.