What lights? (yes, I am posting in the right section)

Question: I know that most monitors are calibrated to 6500K, and that you should remove/control as much lighting that enters the room otherwise. But what about the times when you need to have lights on all the time? Should I get 6500K bulbs to match the monitor, or does this really not matter? I don't mind 6500K at all, it doesn't look blue to me, but finding good compact fluorescents is kind of a challenge. The BlueMax one has a CRI of 94+, and isn't too expensive, but it's only 5500K-5900K. Plus I like the idea of protection with the Amalgam Fill since I accidentally broke a fluorescent recently. I don't really buy into their "full spectrum" term though. Anyways, what would be a good choice, or am I over thinking this whole "problem"?

Are monitors really calibrated to 6500K? I just use the defaults. I use a mix of tungsten and approx 5500K bulbs in my office, it seems to make pretty much no difference to me unless I look at prints, since the monitor has a backlight of its own anyway.

Perhaps you're over-thinking this.

tim wrote in post #5830083
Are monitors really calibrated to 6500K? I just use the defaults. I use a mix of tungsten and approx 5500K bulbs in my office, it seems to make pretty much no difference to me unless I look at prints, since the monitor has a backlight of its own anyway.

Perhaps you're over-thinking this.

Well actually I looked, and many of the profiles that are created through Spyders, Hueys, etc all have a standard of 6500K/D65 (and yes, I know they are slightly different). Don't only LCDs have backlights too? I have a CRT.

I use Spyder 2 Calibration on both my Mac and Dell monitors. On the Mac I can adjust from 6500K but they recommend you stick to that setting. Not sure about the Dell I just reset to factory settings before each calibration.
However both monitors are LCDs

Housings are available to give you the best possible environment. If you want to spend the money.

Hi there, 6500 kelvin is the setting that is used to allow for the fact that people generally work in well lit areas, in fact this is no problem. Setting ambient lighting in your work area to very low levels is only really necessary for highly critical digital darkroom printing, for super duper proffessional high end inkjet printers with 88 inks! It would be NICER to be able to work in slighly dimmer environments because this is recommended for digital darkroom work where colour is of paramount importance in the art.

I hope this might be helpful to you, even with my BRIGHTLY lit environment and UNORTHODOX ambience, my photos and greeting cards (WHILE I CAN SEE ROOM FOR IMPROVEMENT) are just as good as, well, you get the jist of what I am trying to say I hope.

Best regards

Chris.

For a little while I had two calibrations, one for day light, and one artificial light.

I tried it for about a month, but the difference is not noticeable enough, and I got sick of changing it when it got dark and I had to turn the lights on.

Use 5000K for lights, D65 for monitor.
Click

However, I don't think it is that critical, as long as it's constant.

For judging prints, the viewing conditions are more important IMO.

René Damkot wrote in post #5833387
Use 5000K for lights, D65 for monitor.
Click

However, I don't think it is that critical, as long as it's constant.

For judging prints, the viewing conditions are more important IMO.

Thanks. Though his software is basically telling him to use 5500K

Is it?
I think it's telling him the 5400 is one notch on the cold side...