Some have lots of problems easily solved. That IS difficult because man made lighting isn't anywhere as desirable than sunlight! Thankfully we have Solux bulbs, about the best man made illuminant to mimic daylight.
Do examine:
http://solux.net/cgi-bin/tlistore/infopages/index.html
They do have issues (heat for one), but just look at the spectrum!
Exactly.
We have had to deal with the same problem in film production, with the arrival of LED lighting. The early LED lamps had huge gaps or nasty spikes in their spectral output compared to traditional light sources like tungsten. The more recent LED lights are much improved and actually useable, but to this day many cinematographers still feel that tungsten is king.
Here is another example. Kinoflo florescent lighting has always been a problem due to the nasty green spike. Great for green screens or if you are shooting Seven (David Fincher), but not so great if you don't want your leading lady to look like she has jaundice.
I just spent three years working for a major tech company in silicone valley on this very problem. It's interesting how it wasn't a problem, until it became a problem, due to the arrival of new technology.
And when you move a print into rational light level commonly found in the real world is around 400 or 600 lux etc, it's fine; your eye adapts to that (and more!).
Exactly.
Then tell me which page(s) Adams complains about print viewing conditions described here and his 'solution'?
Don't be ridiculous. I'm a 50 year old man and am not going to play a silly game like that.
How many here have photographic prints hanging in their homes? I have many dozen and no issues. I didn't need a light meter to evaluate now to light my photographic prints or otherwise. It's not at all complicated.
I have artwork hanging in my dwelling. I do know that some of those prints appear to be darker than they were intended to be, because the lighting in that part of the house is pretty dim. Does it bother me? It's not the end of the world, but I may do something about it some day.
But I have been to the house of a serious collector. He had track lighting installed. Now, that I think about it the light level on his artwork looked an awful lot like what you see in an exhibit space. I would not be shocked if it turned out to be 500 lux like in a museum...
Matching a display to a print NEXT to the display, for brightness, contrast and WP is more complicated, but absolutely doable.
Of course.
"I never guess/assume. It is a shocking habit -- destructive to the logical faculty." -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
I don't deal well with assumptions. Of the 'general public' to boot. ;)That and more! And it's not complicated and we are lucky to have adaption of human vision.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4742349/
And then it's fun to go into issues and optical illusions when viewing anything.
How to control:
Square A and B are the same color of gray. Assume anything you wish. In the end, most of this is a search for a solution in which a problem doesn't exist.
Well, we can go around and around on this subject for an infinite amount of time. There are an endless set of variables involved in this that no one can control. But like you said, there is no point in overcomplicating this.
So, here is my plan.
The average illumination level for an exhibit space, office, store and many other public spaces is around 500 lux (incident reading).
A GTI booth used for print evaluation is about 500 lux.
In my personal shooting experience 500 lux is a very common level of illumination for anything from a museum to an office or a store.
Therefore I am going to go for 500 lux @ 5000k (incident reading) as a good real world average for print review. This way I know that my print stands a fighting chance of appearing as I intended it be seen, in a high percentage of locations in the real world.
Fortunately for me that level of illumination also happens to match my display nearly perfectly with the recommended monitor calibration settings by Inkjetmall for their Piezo Pro system.