Best ambient room lighting?

[ejnewman]

Hi all

Does anybody have any information on how to setup room lighting for working with a colour managed digital darkroom workflow?

At the moment my studio is totally dark, no windows, the only light is coming from my display. I have been touching on the ISO standards for using between 30-60 lux d55 for ambient room lighting? I take it that means a completely blacked out room is no good?

Thanks for any advice.

Elliot Newman

[stefano]

Elliot,

I can't say what is optimum, but I have been experimenting with my studio, and what seems to work for me is heavy drapes to control outside light, and halogen artificial light at a moderate brightness. When I calibrate my display with my colormunki, ambient readings are around 50/55 lux.

Under these conditions I get pretty good results in terms of print to screen matching. I am planning to get a few Solux lamps on a track to get a bit more light on the wall where I do my print viewing, which I think will get my visual match to my monitor even closer.

Overall I like to have enough light to be able to properly evaluate the prints, and I try to keep the brightness of my monitor at the value suggested by the colormunki during calibration.

Stefano