Re: Viewer fluorescents

[T3D Bob Howard <bobh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

RE: Color correcting and fluorescents in light tables and viewers.

The idea of a color corrected light table originated when engravers, 
art directors, and clients were all holding up transparencies to the 
sky, incandescent room light, window, or normal fluorescent lamps to 
view them.  And then arguing forever after about how the engraving 
and printed page different from what they all saw and thought they 
were going to get. So they decided they needed a standard to view against.
Fluorescent lamps have almost no red and are plagued with hot mercury 
spikes in the green. Some phosphers were made to add more red and 
these are the color corrected lamps sold for store and especially 
meat display, which looks spoiled or dead under normal fluorescent 
lamps. I think a good viewer should have a small incandescent lamp in 
with the fluorescents to get enough red.

I don't see color correcting things like viewers or projectors too 
much  as the eye adapts so well. If you ever projected movies or 
slides onto an off color wall (light brown or green) you saw the 
whitest clouds in the picture, yet you know that wall could NOT 
reflect white in any form. But your brain expects a cloud to be white 
and made it so. When you turned on the room light, the wall was its
normal light brown or light green. BobH


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