Ambient light

[Littlefield]

Hey ,I have the Eye One 2 display Xrite and can tell my monitor a CRT is a lot better but how do you get the right ambient light ?
What light bulbs do you recommend  ?
I appreciate any suggestions or type of light that would be in an amateur's range  price to use .
thanks Don

[digitaldog]

Hey ,I have the Eye One 2 display Xrite and can tell my monitor a CRT is a lot better but how do you get the right ambient light ?
What light bulbs do you recommend  ?
I appreciate any suggestions or type of light that would be in an amateur's range  price to use .
thanks Don
[{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

Keep Ambient light as dim as you can comfortably work (not bumping into the table). Darker is always better.

As for lighting of a print, there are two camps. One is Fluorescent "daylight" booths like those by GTI (I have one and love it). These are not the most ideal light sources due to the Fluorescent lights but they are an industry standard found in labs and print shops so I use it. The other is a continuous truly full spectrum light such as those by Solux. Even better! Downside is heat and you don't have as much control over them but as far as the illuminant, they can't be beat and are not expensive.

[a href=\"http://www.gtilite.com/]http://www.gtilite.com/[/url]
http://www.solux.net/cgi-bin/tlistore/infopages/index.html

[bill t.]

But keep a pragmatic mindset when evaluating your prints under these nearly perfect proofing light sources.

For my very first big digital show, I evaluated the prints under fresh D50 fluorescents and then in indirect sunlight from both north and south facing windows.  They looked beautiful!  Then when I got them up in the gallery with some tired-out tungsten spots, they looked horribly ruddy!  So now I'm careful to look at my proofs not just under my proofing lights but also under the dim tungsten lights in the bathroom, and in the warm-white fluorescent + tungsten + daylight mix in the lounge area.  Just walking around your shop or house with your proofs can tell you a lot about how they might look in a client's location.