White lights in a Darkroom?

Kino · Dec 22, 2021

Everyone talks about safe lights, but I have seen very little about other's strategies on using Full-spectrum or Color Correct luminaries in their darkroom.

Darkrooms can be gloomy, frustrating places to work when normal room lights are turned on to do chemical mixing or a myriad of other photo related duties.

What do you use to examine a freshly processed print? What kind of lightbox do you use? What color temperature are your "normal" lights?

Personally, I am going to install a rail of fairly powerful LED track lights to see if it solves my illumination issues, but wanted to see how others deal with this problem.

Don_ih · Dec 22, 2021

I currently have bare incandescent bulbs - two of them - and it's terrible. I mostly can't judge a print until it's in a different room. I find led lights a bit arrogant and prefer regular frosted lightbulbs - so I may wire in more of those or put a couple in a better location. My current irritation is I don't have the regular light switch close enough to the enlargers.But I'm sill working on the practical workings of my darkroom. (And actually currently working on finding a place for all the stuff I have in there.)
I got lucky a few years ago and found a good lightbox that must've been for xrays or something. But since that's been buried under a mountain of plastic printfile negative holders for two years, I've been using a thin 5-volt-usb powered light tablet. It's harsh but very small and so easy to find a place to put it.

Deleted member 88956 · Dec 22, 2021

soft daylight is best for me. now it's cheap to mount a long narrow soft box over a bulb(s) fitting and good quality LED bulbs are aplenty. hang it over darkroom sink (or wherever you look at prints).

darkroommike · Dec 22, 2021

Some LED's have an invisible afterglow so are not the best solution for darkroom illumination. That said I have a pretty powerful 4 foot LED "shoplight" mounted over my dryside bench. I just never use it in the beginning or middle of a session. Only when mixing chemicals or doing finishing work. And having said that, mixing chemicals in the darkroom is not best practice either. My standard darkroom white light is a pair of 60 watt incandescent lamps in a wye holder mounted over the enlarger, the wye holder is nice since if one lamp burns out I can still see to change the lamp.

Kino · Dec 22, 2021

I knew about the afterglow issues with florescent lights, but not with the LEDs, so I'll have to test them. It may be that I have to turn them off for a period of time before I can print, but I would think that the afterglow would disappear rather rapidly.

As for print viewing, I am thinking a single LED light bulb in a reflector, pointing down at my squeegee board. There are many available with 5000k & 90+ CRI output available online.

Again, afterglow may be an issue, but I don't think 5600K incandescent bulbs will be practical or economical for this purpose.

ic-racer · Dec 22, 2021

I just put high power LED in my darkroom and they have a 2 second afterglow. I suspect from the power supply.
Over my print processing area I have 12v halogen lamps. These extinguish quickly.

VinceInMT · Dec 22, 2021

I have seen the “afterglow” but wonder is it really strong enough to fog film or paper? By the time I get the lights turned off and get back to where I am opening the film or paper, I suspect that the remaining photons are negligible.

Kino · Dec 22, 2021

Don Heisz said:
My current irritation is I don't have the regular light switch close enough to the enlargers.But I'm sill working on the practical workings of my darkroom. (And actually currently working on finding a place for all the stuff I have in there.)

I just purchased a wireless light controller with 2 battery operated wall switches for my overhead lights. The tiny receiver installs under the light fixture inside the electric box and the switches can be mounted where ever you like. The only drawback I can see is that the switches use batteries, but it was fairly inexpensive at about $25 so I figured it was worth a try.

As for working on finding a place for all the stuff, I hear you. My ambitions far outstrip my available wall and floor space...

Pieter12 · Dec 22, 2021

I have a Waveform NorthLux™ 95 CRI T5 LED Linear Light Fixture over my rinse tray. I have not noticed any afterglow. I have seen significant afterglow from LED bulbs, though. For critical viewing, I have a GTI desktop viewing station in my dry work area.

Sirius Glass · Dec 22, 2021

I have a white light for viewing when necessary and a white light table.

mshchem · Dec 22, 2021

Evaluating color print color balance can be a real chore. My, now closed, local lab had a technician who was amazing. I need ring around prints. I have a daylight lamp, but natural light is still the best for me. I need a color booth like I used when I worked for a living.

gone · Dec 22, 2021

Kino said:
What do you use to examine a freshly processed print?

I wish I knew. This is something that can make or break a photo, or anything that's hung on the wall. You basically have to set up things for one particular type of light, or ask what type of light someone will be using to display the print in.

This was on my mind earlier today because a small color sketch that had looked plain vanilla in my kitchen/darkroom lights last night now looks very nice because the kitchen is lit up w/ sunlight. So what does it really look like?

This was an old argument I had once w/ a painting teacher that wanted us to paint things as we saw them, and I asked, but in what light? Nothing looks like anything w/o some light, and since the light is always different what does it really look like? She said, I agree, there's nothing out there that's real (waves arms around wildly to indicate the world), but just do the exercise or I suggest you drop the course. So I did, what a crabby, illogical person. I already had one of those at home, 2 if you counted the cat.

Pieter12 · Dec 22, 2021

I recently saw some of my prints hanging at an exhibition. They looked a little dull compare to how they look in my viewing box. I guess I will try to use a different (less bright) light at least for my darkroom inspection lamp, even though it is 95CRI which I took to be a good standard for gallery lighting situations.

MattKing · Dec 22, 2021

Way Beyond Monochrome has an answer for Black and White.
And I've posted about it before
[URL="https://www.photrio.com/forum/threads/print-viewing-lamp.184895/#post-2434267"]Print Viewing Lamp[/URL]
Aha, I found it!
In the first edition (which I have) it is on page 241, which is in the chapter that Ralph wrote describing his then darkroom - "The Spacious Darkroom".
Ralph recommends incandescent bulbs which illuminate the viewing board at an intensity of EV 6, at ISO 100, when measured with an incident meter.
The first edition of Way Beyond Monochrome is now about 20 years old, so I expect that a good quality, high CRI dimmable LED source would also work well.
By the way, I would be remiss in not mentioning that Way Beyond Monochrome is co-written by Ralph Lambrecht and Chris Woodhouse.

Sirius Glass · Dec 22, 2021

Pieter12 said:
I recently saw some of my prints having at an exhibition. They looked a little dull compare to how they look in my viewing box. I guess I will try to use a different (less bright) light at least for my darkroom inspection lamp, even though it is 95CRI which I took to be a good standard for gallery lighting situations.

A viewing box can give false impression if one is not looking a slide.

Pieter12 · Dec 22, 2021

Sirius Glass said:
A viewing box can give false impression if one is not looking a slide.

I meant viewing booth. https://www.gtilite.com/products/de...tions/pdv-professional-desktop-color-viewers/

Kino · Dec 22, 2021

Pieter12 said:
I recently saw some of my prints hanging at an exhibition. They looked a little dull compare to how they look in my viewing box. I guess I will try to use a different (less bright) light at least for my darkroom inspection lamp, even though it is 95CRI which I took to be a good standard for gallery lighting situations.

Well the "standard" I hear quoted a lot is about 100 to 200 foot candles of illumination, so the possible variations from gallery to gallery could almost make it worthwhile to make a couple of prints per image to choose for any one exhibition site.

Sirius Glass · Dec 22, 2021

Pieter12 said:
I meant viewing booth. https://www.gtilite.com/products/de...tions/pdv-professional-desktop-color-viewers/
View attachment 293762

Oh, that is not what I was talking about. We violently agree.

mshchem · Dec 22, 2021

If nothing else I realize I need to print color often, or quit printing color completely. I used a company light booth, no longer available since I left. "Color People" who evaluate color for a living are amazing. My cat Gus is not impressed

Doremus Scudder · Dec 22, 2021

Dealing with color balance for color prints is tricky; I only print black-and-white, so I'll let the expert color printers on the forum address that issue.

For me, I try to duplicate what I feel to be ideal gallery lighting on my viewing wall. I've got a mix of regular and "daylight" incandescent floodlights in track lighting shining down on my magnetic white board. I have similar track lighting above the 10-foot sink with most pointed at the fixing and toning trays. For final evaluation of a print, I like to view it in both dimmer and brighter light. It's hard to tell under what lighting a print will eventually end up; I like to print so mine works in the widest range possible.

As for general white light in the darkroom; I like a cheery, bright workplace. My darkroom is painted white. I've got three sets of track lighting and some bounced light as well. No dim bare rafters or flat-black walls for me. Safelights are really nice bounced off a white ceiling.

Best,

Doremus

Pieter12 · Dec 22, 2021

mshchem said:
If nothing else I realize I need to print color often, or quit printing color completely. I used a company light booth, no longer available since I left. "Color People" who evaluate color for a living are amazing. My cat Gus is not impressed
View attachment 293764

As an art director, I regularly evaluated color, both at the proofing stage and on press. It can be quite stressful, and one must come to terms with the limitations of reflective, CMYK color rendering and the practical aspects of printing multiple images in signatures on press.

mshchem · Dec 22, 2021

This was another quick "test roll". Ektar is so saturated, winter light here doesn't help. I need to stick to Portra

Kino · Dec 22, 2021

Ran home and installed my track lighting. Tested it and there is only about 1/2 a second afterglow, so I am happy.

Really easy to install.

mshchem · Dec 22, 2021

I have 4 foot fluorescent fixtures. In my darkroom The lamps are labeled 6500°K.

My wife is a artist we got some LED fixtures, for her studio that are amazing. Brilliant white light. 4 foot triple tubes. That's the best light in my house.

My wife is a genius

Nige · Dec 23, 2021

I have a clear incandescent globe of about 40W I think over my wash area, operated by a pull cord. That and dry down combines so that I'm usually happy with the prints the next day (i.e they still look to me like what I was trying to achieve). I have another separately switched 100W globe that is the general room light used mostly not during printing activities (mixing chems, cleaning, etc), the 40W'r gives enough light to navigate neg sleeves, cupboard for more paper, etc. although I flick the central light on when dusting negs prior to inserting into neg carriers as the light reflection angles work better for examining the neg surfaces.

White lights in a Darkroom?

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