Posted by Grace Blair on September 24, 2008 at 11:26 AM
I am in the process of repainting all of the rooms in my house. I am about to begin the process in the room that I use for photo editing and printing. I was planning to paint the room 18% grey, but would like some ideas/suggestions from others. My office furniture is a dark brown. I CAN redo everything, including the floor. Searching for threads on this topic has been pretty unrevealing. What do you have/recommend and what have you found to produce problems in evaluating prints? Any good websites for this topic that you have encountered?
TIA
Posted by Adam Schallau on September 24, 2008 at 12:19 PM
Maybe this will help. It's an old article, but part II, page 2, has interesting information regarding paint color for a digital darkroom.
Posted by Kelly Rowe on September 24, 2008 at 2:20 PM
I took a WhiBal card to the box store and had them measure it with their colorimeter. I've got 18% grey walls in my office area. My studio walls are flat black.
Posted by Robert Fisher on September 24, 2008 at 2:38 PM
The idea of going to the extreme of 18% grey is really unnecessary. Stick with a neutral colour and you'll be fine. Even an off white is fine. Stay away from electric blue or neon fuschia and you'll be fine. I've even read about people making sure they wear neutral grey clothing when they edit so that there aren't any reflections onto the screen that could mess them up. That's really extreme. There are reasons for 18% grey walls, don't get me wrong. Press houses will often have neutral grey walls in viewing rooms but it's not absolutely vital.
Lighting is more important than or at least as important as room colour. Subdued, diffused lighting is key and it should be from an oblique angle to the computer screen (i.e., not shining directly on the screen or into your eyes). I've got a single, daylight CFL bulb on one corner of my L-shaped desk and my screen is at about a 180 degree angle to the light. I can just see it out of the corner of my eye when sitting at the desk and it's about the same brightness as my screen emits. The light has a heavy, frosted shade that diffuses the light very well. It's one of those uplights so it points at the ceiling and bounces for an even more indirect, diffuse effect. I can't even see my reflection in my computer screen. I can put brightly coloured prints up to the screen and there's no reflection. Older CRT monitors with glossy, glass front were worse for reflections but with the matte screens on today's LCD monitors it's really not an issue.
Note that the office photos in the attached article above aren't 18% grey. They appear more whitish than that. I will disagree with the article on the white point of the monitor; however. A monitor white point of D65 or 6500K with room illumination at D50, in my opinion, provides a better environment. A monitor calibrated to D50, to me, appears too dull and too warm.
Discussion
3 repliesTIA
The Darkroom Makes a Comeback - Part I -
The Darkroom Makes a Comeback - Part II -
Lighting is more important than or at least as important as room colour. Subdued, diffused lighting is key and it should be from an oblique angle to the computer screen (i.e., not shining directly on the screen or into your eyes). I've got a single, daylight CFL bulb on one corner of my L-shaped desk and my screen is at about a 180 degree angle to the light. I can just see it out of the corner of my eye when sitting at the desk and it's about the same brightness as my screen emits. The light has a heavy, frosted shade that diffuses the light very well. It's one of those uplights so it points at the ceiling and bounces for an even more indirect, diffuse effect. I can't even see my reflection in my computer screen. I can put brightly coloured prints up to the screen and there's no reflection. Older CRT monitors with glossy, glass front were worse for reflections but with the matte screens on today's LCD monitors it's really not an issue.
Note that the office photos in the attached article above aren't 18% grey. They appear more whitish than that. I will disagree with the article on the white point of the monitor; however. A monitor white point of D65 or 6500K with room illumination at D50, in my opinion, provides a better environment. A monitor calibrated to D50, to me, appears too dull and too warm.