DAYLIGHT LIGHTBULBS

[dpp]

Hi

I have a question regarding Daylight light bulbs that I have installed in my room.
I had a big problem because my pictures were coming back from the lab darker and different than they appeared on the screen, this was mostly my fault as my room was the wrong colour and I had the wrong light bulbs in the room.

To remedy this I have done the following.

Painted my room a neutral grey, and installed a 5ft daylight strobe(lightbulb) onto the ceiling. Now this is where the problem question is.

To avoid a shadow on the monitor I installed the 5ft light directly above the monitor, the problem now is that the light shines directly onto the screen , which I believe is not advisable. I have therefore shaded the screen area on the monitor by attaching cardboard to the monitor. Is this Ok? I am beginning to get paranoid with my prints and its driving me mad. Am I right in thinking that the strobe will light the whole room, therefore shading the monitor from the direct light above is OK.

[charlesu]

Hi

I have a question regarding Daylight light bulbs that I have installed in my room.
I had a big problem because my pictures were coming back from the lab darker and different than they appeared on the screen, this was mostly my fault as my room was the wrong colour and I had the wrong light bulbs in the room.

To remedy this I have done the following.

Painted my room a neutral grey, and installed a 5ft daylight strobe(lightbulb) onto the ceiling. Now this is where the problem question is.

To avoid a shadow on the monitor I installed the 5ft light directly above the monitor, the problem now is that the light shines directly onto the screen , which I believe is not advisable. I have therefore shaded the screen area on the monitor by attaching cardboard to the monitor. Is this Ok? I am beginning to get paranoid with my prints and its driving me mad. Am I right in thinking that the strobe will light the whole room, therefore shading the monitor from the direct light above is OK.

How are you calibrating your monitor?

If you are not, the first thing to do is get a Spyder or comparable product and do a calibration.

[dpp]

I calibrate it with a spyder, but guess that when I had yellow walls and normal light bulbs that does not do the image much good , because you see it on the screen differently when the walls are that colour,

Thats why I painted the walls and put the strobe up

[steven]

Painting your walls sound somewhat extream.

When you calbrated your monitor did you let it warm up for at least a hour, and limit or eliminate any light falling on the display?

These two factors will effect the calabration.

[dpp]

yes I did let it warm up and the calibration was fine, I spoke with my ,lab and he advised a daylight bulb as it gets dark here early and I was working in a room with yellow walls, bad lighting and dark outside.

So he suggested white/grey walls and a daylight strobe, I have the strobe directly over the monitor and I have had to shade the monitor from the direct strobe light.

Am I correct in thinking that I should NOT be working with dirct light on the monitor?

[Andy_T]

DPP ... yes, it sounds a bit paranoid to me, too ... but I understand your pain.

I assume that you have ruled out the possibility of the printer being the culprit (e.g. wrong ICC profile) ???

Best regards,
Andy

[steven]

It is beginning to sound like the printer to me too.
I have calabrated my monitor and print to a local printer and the prints look great, even under different lighting that the room I printed them in.

So I would wonder if the printer had something wrong.

[DocFrankenstein]

Did you have the right ICC profile for the grey paint you used on the walls? :confused:

[DocFrankenstein]

Jokes...

I understand you though. It takes time and money to do this stuff, and it's frustrating when you don't get what you want.

And IMO grey painted walls are a must in the calibrated room. In fact, everything should be grey... including your desktop wallpaper.