On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 2:12 PM, Christine Nielsen <[email protected]> wrote: > ...If I may butt in with a related question... what about room > lighting? I'm trying to get my own system color-managed, but I've > seen conflicting answers... for calibrating the monitor, should my > room be illuminated "to a reasonable reading level", or "as dark as > possible as long as you can still operate the controls on your > monitor" (http://www.robertstech.com/blog/?p=64!) ..? > > Then, once we're all calibrated & editing is underway, how should the > room be lit? The same way as for calibrating? I'm guessing that the > main goal would be consistency in the ambient light... and that it be > consistently daylight-balanced? What about daytime vs nighttime > editing...?
The crux of the matter is your eyes. All the calibration in the world does no good at all if your eyes are working in the wrong environment. Quoting from my own article "Color Management Can Be Simple" – ::: There are three calibration target parameters of importance: - brightness or luminance :: the brightness of the display - gamma :: the contrast curve you want to display to follow, normally 2.2 or 1.8. - white point :: what color temperature is considered "white". Sunlight is more blue than indoor room light, so white in sunlight has a higher color temperature than white in an indoor space illuminated by warm- white tungsten or flourescent bulbs. Display brightness has to be matched to reasonable ambient light in your workspace for best results ... this is very important as it affects how your eyes see color and brightness. *Reasonable ambient* light means normal reading/working illumination without direct sunlight or other high intensity light sources falling on the monitor, not a black cave. E.g.: My work room light is provided by a pair of 60W equivalent bulbs in a soft overhead light, supplemented by light filtering in around mostly closed blinds during daylight hours. A meter reading off the wall beside my desk shows ISO 100 @ f/4 @ 1/5 second, just to give you an idea how bright it is. I shade the windows tightly during the day to minimize the amount of sunlight coming in so the room light is stable day and night. For this environment with an Apple Cinema Display 23" display, my targets for calibration are 120 cdM^2 luminance, 1.8 gamma, and white point of 5500K. The current "industry standard" settings would be cooler white and higher contrast: 120 luminance, 2.2 gamma and 6500K white point are also reasonable. (I prefer the warmer white and softer gamma as it matches my printing and exhibition needs more closely.) ::: I've had thousands of hits on that article and some well-known experts in the field have vetted that it is exactly right, what they recommend and set up in their own labs. -- Godfrey godfreydigiorgi.posterous.com -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
