# Need info on true color lights



## Pacificheadwear (Apr 7, 2016)

I run a warehouse that sells and embroiders baseball hats. We have lots of different colors of fabrics and many of them are very similar and I am struggling to find a commercially available "true color" light that will illuminate colors well in a warehouse environment. My QC area is approximately 300 square feet. Currently we have 4000k LED lights that are 84 CRI, they are mounted about 20'+/- above the table. One option is to install more of the same light fixtures and lower them to get more light to the table but I think trying to find a "true color" light would help us immensely. The specific colors we have trouble distinguishing are black/navy and light/dark green, but we also have dye lot variations that we need to be able to spot. My wife has an Ottlite that she uses for quilting and we tested it and it really illuminates the colors well, but it isn't feasible to check 8,000+ hats a day with desk lamps and I don't know if they make commercial size bulbs (or if there is a cheaper brand that is the exact same thing). I'm not sure what other information would be helpful for people to make suggestions to solve my dilemma. Thank you in advance.


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## brickbat (Apr 10, 2016)

"True Color" is a meaningless term, from a technical standpoint. It's the 'warm and fuzzy' of the lighting world.

I'd grab a set of 32W T8 fluorescent lamps in a 950 or 960 color and see how they work.

For example: Philips 20905-6 - F32T8/TL950


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## FRITZHID (Apr 10, 2016)

Higher CRI LED lighting would help.


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## Ken_McE (Apr 10, 2016)

Pacificheadwear said:


> My QC area is approximately 300 square feet. Currently we have 4000k LED lights that are 84 CRI, they are mounted about 20'+/- above the table.



You need a higher CRI, something in the 90's. Incandescent can do this, although it will tend to be best at red/yellow/orange and weaker in blue/green.

You can get fluorescent tubes that have a CRI in the 90's, as per Brickbat. You could buy a case of his 98 CRI bad boys, hang some T-8 fixtures, have the problem solved fast.

Leds may be able to do this, but you would have to check into them carefully. LEDs are naturally focused on small areas of the spectrum. The manufacturers have various clever techniques to broaden their spectrum and make it more lifelike, but your needs go beyond the everyday LED.

I think that all of the HID (Mercury vapor, Sodium, Metal Halide) lights would be inappropriate for this job.

High CRI, as high as possible, is the key to your solution. Can you bring any actual sunlight into this area?

Auto body shops also work with high precision color matching. Call a local shop, ask what they use.



Pacificheadwear said:


> ... One option is to install more of the same light fixtures and lower them to get more light to the table



Don't do that. It would be like having a stereo with cheap speakers and cranking it up louder to try and make it sound better. You would make everything brighter, but not clearer.


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## FRITZHID (Apr 10, 2016)

Most auto body shops use hcri floros OR hcri cmh. A very few paint spray booths have hcri LED lighting due to the lower lm/w of quality hcri LEDs.
I personally LOVE my +93 cmh in my lab for high lumen needs, otherwise I use 90 CRI LEDs but their outputs don't justify the end cost for the number of lm in my application.
I deff agree with Ken on the don't up the # of lights you already have. All you'll have is a larger amount of crappy light. Not better quality light.


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## zerodish (Apr 11, 2016)

At the photo lab we used a combination of florescent and incandescent light to inspect photos. Inspectors also had magnifiers with both types of light built in. What ever the computerized printers could not handle was then sent to human printers. They viewed the negative and were able to input color correction with an array of buttons. My point is this is a skill you can learn with both positive and negative exposures. My job was to make sure the light coming out of the printers was true color. These had 1500 watt quartz bulbs rated at 40 hours. This passed through 2 dichroic filters that was then bounced off aluminum reflectors and then a UV filter. Test strips were run at the start of each shift and measured with an instrument called a densitometer. Bulbs constantly changed color through their life though the eye could not notice this. Really you have not lived until you've seen quartz melt.


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