IMO opinion these viewing stations are a huge rip-off for most photographers.
-1! How do you expect some of us photographers to soft proof our images and then know, what we see is what we got? Case in point:
How did photographers prior to digital imaging do the same (as you ask "
how your prints are going to be viewed")? For those of us printing in the darkroom, we placed our prints in a similar setup. But the bigger issue was, there was no display used to edit our images. It's an intermediary device but critical to how we edit our images. Or do you disagree that display calibration is important? Calibration that provides a visual match NEXT to the display?
If that print appears fine under such conditions, as long as you view the print, away from this condition using ANY lighting that is '
appropriate' for print viewing, your eye adapts to the new illuminant, as it has for tens of thousands of years artists have produced work in one location and viewers examined the print elsewhere. A 5 watt nightlight bulb or a 10K watt lamp isn't appropriate;
don't use them! But again, the major difference between what some of us do digitally and what those artists have done analog without an intermediary device (display) is edit on that display, make a print and hope the print is as we desire based on what we see on that display! Hence we need both color management (number management) and a way to view the analog print next to the digital representation of it, such we don't have to make print after print until we are happy. And even if we do make print after print until we're happy, it's still a very good idea to view that print appropriately; using a well defined and behaved illuminant that is consistent, that we can turn on and off and that we can place next to our display such we know we've got a visual match between the display and print; little to zero surprises on that first print.
IF you get paid by the hour, or print, or if you don't have to pay for paper and ink, you
do not need color management
or a sound print viewing condition for image editing that will result in a print.
Rip off, no. Not if your goal is WYSIWYG in a digital darkroom setup.