Re: filmscanners: Re: Solux lights

["Dave King" <kingphoto@mindspring.com>]

I have an additional saved post from Joe Holmes regarding print
viewing lighting.

Joe Holmes writes:

The lighting thing isn't so hard to explain. The first point is that
if you want an image on a monitor to match the appearance of a print
or film that you hold <next> to it, you simply <must> make the white
points precisely identical, and the CRI of each light source has to be
pretty good or better (the monitor itself is really spikey, but mere
mortals can't help that, at least until some other mere mortals make
better displays).  And, let's not forget, the lighting intensity has
to match, more or less.

The best way to do that for my money (and the bother factor too) is
the SoLux 36 degree beam angle 4700K halogen spot lamp (MR 16 type) in
a track light fixture made by Halo, the L2770P (in white), with a
diffuser disk, L111 "Soft Focus Lens".  Total cost about $200 and a
few hours to put together.  Two would be nice for lighting BIG prints
or for washing the other side of the monitor.

Also, if side-by-side soft proofing is your bag, then don't
underestimate the value to your pictures of good, opaque window
shades.  I have been known to say that window shades are as important
as hard drives, and unless you live in a cave, or work at night, it's
true (if you really want to make pictures just right).  My studio has
good shades, and I have six pairs of twin 48" D50 fluorescents for the
main lighting, plus the SoLux mounted over my monitor.  When I want
really good lighting, I close the shades, turn off the overhead
lights, and turn on the SoLux.  The monitor's white point is visually
matched to the SoLux white point, with the SoLux shining on my
favorite printing paper (Fujicolor Crystal Archive).  The monitor is
calibrated to the "Current" option in Prove it! with the instrument,
or calibrated visually, which I like just as well overall, maybe
better.

When you <don't> need to match the print to the screen, rather just
evaluate it, then the viewing light hardly matters, except inasmuch as
"what you light it up with is what you get", to coin a phrase. Indeed
prints are not illuminated with D50 lights in galleries or museums,
ever (with very rare exceptions, i.e. with SoLux lamps, or the
occasional 5000K fluorescent).  And since your eyes adjust very, very
well to changing white points, the image, with its white paper
base takes its own white point with it, so the main issue for viewing
the print is that if you use ordinary cool tungsten (i.e. warm, very
yellowish), as opposed to hot (i.e. less yellow) tungsten halogens,
for example, then the blue really dies noticeably in prints because
there is a limit to how much the light can be off from daylight,
especially when dim, and our eyes still adapt fully.

I evaluate the print's match to the soft proof, just to see if the
color management and printer process control is working right.  Then I
evaluate the editing that I did to the image by viewing the print
under a series of light sources, including ordinary tungsten, tungsten
halogen, D50 fluorescents, cloudy daylight, and window light on a
sunny day.  If the print looks good under one, it will pretty much
look good under all of them, but when you start getting really picky,
you try to make it look its best under a compromise somewhere in the
middle (e.g. a SoLux 4200K lamp, which is another product. Don't
forget to check out your prints under fairly dim lighting. Bright
light can hide a multitude of ways for a print to be <too dark>.

Joe Holmes