Are legacy rules on luminance and ambient lighting still valid? [was: Eizo CG242W, Spectraview 2690]
Are legacy rules on luminance and ambient lighting still valid? [was: Eizo CG242W, Spectraview 2690]
- Subject: Are legacy rules on luminance and ambient lighting still valid? [was: Eizo CG242W, Spectraview 2690]
- From: Marco Ugolini <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 28 Apr 2009 12:12:01 -0700
- Thread-topic: Are legacy rules on luminance and ambient lighting still valid? [was: Eizo CG242W, Spectraview 2690]
In a message dated 4/28/09 7:55 AM, Todd Shirley wrote:
> On Apr 27, 2009, at 3:40 PM, Marco Ugolini wrote:
>
>> On the other hand, if you do prepress work -- using a color-correct light
>> booth next to your display and soft-proofing on screen to your chosen output
>> destination -- then you are working within much stricter tolerances, and a
>> lower luminance will be better for you (80-100cd/m2). Your work environment
>> will also need to be strictly controlled (dark neutral walls, dark
>> clothing, no reflections, etc.)
>
> Actually, if you are doing soft-proofing and you are putting a light
> booth next to the monitor to compare a hardcopy proof to the screen,
> the screen has to be pretty bright, usually in the 140-160cd/m2 range.
> A monitor set to 80-100 will look too dark compared to a light booth,
> even if you dim the light booth all the way down. At 140-160, the
> booth will be at about 40-50% brightness.
>
> All the certified soft proofing systems listed at
> http://www.swop.org/certification/monitorList.asp
> have a target luminance of 160cd/m2 on the application data sheets.
> I was under the impression that the lower "recommended" values (80-100
> cd/m2) were partly the result of legacy values from the days of CRT
> and partly recommended to extend the life of the back-light as long as
> possible. In most "real-world" prepress departments, anything below
> 140 is going to be too dim.
I tend to agree with you, Todd. I don't agree with the purist stance that
mandates cavelike work environments and low luminances even with today's
monitor displays. I myself have been successful at performing color-critical
work for my clients in my own home office, where my monitor is set for a
luminance of 140 cd/m2 and the ambient lighting is around 100 lux (both of
which values the traditional prepress operator would wag a finger at).
But I have neither the time nor the resources to perform the real-life tests
which would conclusively *prove* that low luminances and dim ambient
conditions either do or do not make a vital difference for color-critical
prepress work even with high-end LCD monitor displays. Clearly, my sense of
it is that they don't.
When it comes to luminance values and work environments, we are currently
in a territory where many respected ad seasoned prepress operators strongly
hold on to the enduring validity of legacy rules and habits, and seem to do
so uncritically -- whereas those habits and rules may well have been made
obsolete by the dramatic intervening advancements in display technologies
since the days of CRTs.
As I said, that is my sense of it for the time being, but I will have to
leave it to others to *prove* my intuitive guess either correct or
incorrect.
Marco Ugolini
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