Ambient Lighting In your room

Hi everyone,

I am learning about colour managed workflows with the help of these excellent forums and particularly Ray Wests and Ashers help. My thanks to them both.

I thought I would pose this question to see what everyone thinks (It may have been raised in another thread so if so I apologise for repeating the question).

How would you all suggest I setup my bedroom for Image processing workflows. In particular I was wondering how people who work from home (in a bedroom) set up their lighting so they get the best viewing environment.

I don't want to discuss the process of calibration particularly as that is covered elsewhere. I would rather have your comments on things like Monitor position, Daylight bulbs, wall colours, use of curtains to create darker working areas etc. but bear in mind that the working area is still a bedroom so I can't just paint all the wall a nice cell block grey!!.

Also how important is the external lighting anyway? I have tried working with curtains open on a cloudy day and with curtains closed when it is sunny but am not sure which is better.

let me know what you think.

Thanks

Tim..

Bedroom is a bedroom & in my case I had lot of daylight coming in which was controlled with curtain but I finally shifted to another dedicated room with dim lighting & that has improved the consistency of lighting now.

The walls are light grey & most of the day the room is lit by very low northern window sunlight, I face east while working. The room has a lamp too if required on northern wall.

Tim Davey said:

Hi everyone,

I am learning about colour managed workflows with the help of these excellent forums and particularly Ray Wests and Ashers help. My thanks to them both.

I thought I would pose this question to see what everyone thinks (It may have been raised in another thread so if so I apologise for repeating the question).

How would you all suggest I setup my bedroom for Image processing workflows. In particular I was wondering how people who work from home (in a bedroom) set up their lighting so they get the best viewing environment.

I don't want to discuss the process of calibration particularly as that is covered elsewhere. I would rather have your comments on things like Monitor position, Daylight bulbs, wall colours, use of curtains to create darker working areas etc. but bear in mind that the working area is still a bedroom so I can't just paint all the wall a nice cell block grey!!.

Also how important is the external lighting anyway? I have tried working with curtains open on a cloudy day and with curtains closed when it is sunny but am not sure which is better.

let me know what you think.

Thanks

Tim..

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Hi Tim!

As long as you use a good monitor/display, dimm you overall brightness a bit and it´s ok enough.
If you´re not doing professional pre-press: don´t overestimate those things like ambient light - better take care of a really good calibration and the quality of your display. Doing that is hard enough . .
A good and well calibrated display works i a bright room and in a shadowed room also - a not so good and not well calibrated display doesn´t work better in a dimmed and grey-painted room at all . . ;-)

best, Klaus

Hi Tim,

Klaus has given great advice. Just make sure that your monitor is properly calibrated.

A controlled light environment is only needed if you do professional pre-press jobs. The best solution in that case is to buy a viewing booth. But I'll repeat what Klaus has already said, these things are not really needed for the rest of us.

Cheers,

Thanks for all the replies. This information really helps me get a handle on the issue.

Do you all think I should have two profiles for my monitor, one for when its sunny and I have to shut the curtains and another when its a dull cloudy day and I leave the curtains open?

Hi Tim,

If the final product is a print, then it will be more important to view the print in its final lighting situation, and when the ink is dry. If the final product is for folk to view images on a web site, then you will be more or less out of control, it will depend on their monitor adjustment. After some try outs, you will let your eyes make the final delicate adjustments, you will realise your monitor will look more green on a sunny day, or whatever.

Best wishes,

Ray

Tim Davey said:

Do you all think I should have two profiles for my monitor, one for when its sunny and I have to shut the curtains and another when its a dull cloudy day and I leave the curtains open?

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Theroetically since your calibration device is resting flat against the surface of your monitor, the ambient light should play a very little role in the profiling process anyway, but the opinions on this differ. It can make some difference when you work with a CRT and the thick glass tube of the CRT conducts some ambient light into the profiling device via reflections. Once you start profiling for various conditions, just where do you draw the line (one can create tens of them for any given condition)? And remember, you cannot touch the controls of your monitor to get a new profile right since this will invalidate all the previous profiles. So the answer is, make one good profile and stick to it, reprofile often. Use profile validation tools to see the decay of your particular monitor and how often it needs calibration/profiling. I used to create the profiles in total darkness before but I don't do that anymore. I also agree with Ray fully on what he's written.

Regards,

Sounds like good advice, I think I will just stick to my single profile set up then.

Hi Tim

It's amazing how OPF works as a team, let me summarize

Klaus:
As long as you use a good monitor/display, dimm you overall brightness a bit and it´s ok enough.

Cem:
make sure that your monitor is properly calibrated.
buy a viewing booth… if…

Ray:
…If the final product is a print, then it will be more important to view the print in its final lighting situation, and when the ink is dry.
If the final product is for folk to view images on a web site, then you will be more or less out of control

Cem:
Theroetically since your calibration device is resting flat against the surface of your monitor, the ambient light should play a very little role in the profiling process anyway

Maybe Andrew (Rodney) could come-up and confirm or add some more "real life" advices?

Have a good day full of good light (light is always good imho)

Here's my experience but if Andrew disagrees just knock me beside the head.

Ambient light is the light you view your print in beside the monitor (not letting it shine directly on the monitor) and does play a part in your calibration so it needs to be considered if you are optimizing the room. If the wall colors are pretty neutral I wouldn't go overboard painting them dull gray. Don't illuminate the walls and you will not have a big issue there. The calibration software asked you to define the ambient light level when you calibrated or profiled the monitor. If you calibrated in a dark room and later try to work in a bright room you would need a different target level for settings the black level. It's going to be hard to control the outdoor light quality so it's simpler to close the blinds when you work and use a lamp or viewing booth to compare your print.

One lamp that's often recommended is the Solux lamp. That's what I use. Their desk lamp will illuminate a modest sized print well on the desk and show a full range of color. There's a less expensive clamp on version that should perform well too if it comes with the same bulb. There are compact florescent bulbs that claim to be daylight. The craft compact florescent bulbs at Lowes state 5000k and may be a better choice on a budget. My experience with daylight florescent is it is many times better than a torch lamp or workshop florescent but still not extremely faithful in rendering color. Take you photo outdoors to compare. Have other types of lights to replicate where you think your prints will be displayed so you can tweak.

Stick to one light level and light source next to your monitor if you want the calibration to be optimum.

As for the position of my monitor... It faces South South West. Just keep the walls a couple feet from the sides if you can and use a monitor shade or black foam core to shade if you have issues with stray light.

Sorry guys, I come from a prepress background.

Paul

Yes Nicolas,

I've only just joined and am already appreciating all the help and encouraging words of the community.

Tim Davey said:

Yes Nicolas,

I've only just joined and am already appreciating all the help and encouraging words of the community.

Click to expand...

Enjoy! and share in return too ;-)

Nicolas Claris summerized points made by OPFers:

Klaus: As long as you use a good monitor/display, dimm you overall brightness a bit and it´s ok enough.

If your monitor is too bright compared to the room, you might get prints that are not bright enough!

Cem:
make sure that your monitor is properly calibrated.
buy a viewing booth… if….

LCD monitors are not calibrated, rather their characteristics are recorded. Then the software remaps your image files perceptually, to that LCD's native color space, which is after all fixed. When you do, you don't want extranious colored room light to influence the collection of data from the screen or when you zero out the i-one or other screen measuring device. I put the puck on the white target in its cradle and cover it with black sheet to make sure I'm calibrating neutral. Maybe that's over fussing but it takes no extra time

Ray:
…If the final product is a print, then it will be more important to view the print in its final lighting situation, and when the ink is dry.
If the final product is for folk to view images on a web site, then you will be more or less out of control.

For display, check the ambient light there too. It might be that you need to print for that light if it is waqy off! For the web, convert a copy of the image to sRGB for the file and check on at least one PC if posible.

Cem: Theroetically since your calibration device is resting flat against the surface of your monitor, the ambient light should play a very little role in the profiling process anyway.[/Quote]

See above


We'll see what Andrew Rodney has to add, I expect he will not disappoint!

Asher

"Sorry guys, I come from a prepress background. "

as an advertising-photographer i´m very familiar with prepress - and own a drumscanner with a dedicated Mac exclusively for scanning, which means full hardware-calibration and balanced light for looking at proofs and so on.

But i would say that´s a bit overdone for hobbyists who just want to have a consistent workflow for home printing with teir inkjet . . . ;-)