The temperature of light
1st Nov. '06 · Category: Home & Garden · Tags: home, interior-design, lighting
Authored by Kate Smith
When you’re working with color, it is important to understand the temperature of the lighting source - not in terms of degrees, but in terms of whether the light given off has a yellowish, warm light or a bluish, cool light.
As a general rule, most standard, incandescent lights send out warm light while fluorescent lighting generally ranges between a very cool bluish-white to a warmer, pinkish hue.
When these bulbs are lit, the neodymium (the reason the bulbs are blue) provides a pure, clean light by filtering out most of the yellow. Removing much of the dulling yellow cast from common incandescent light bulbs means the colors in your room are truer and the surface textures are more defined.
Philips has a product they call Natural Light that provides a quality of light that is similar to natural daylight. This type of light is close to spectrum lighting, which is a very natural white light.
If you want to create a mood in a room - even if it’s just for a party or event - you might consider color-altering LED lights, which can often be controlled with the flip of a switch. Philips has just such a product that will let you be the “light of the party.”
Both the GE and Philips sites have good information that can help you to understand how to use lighting to create a mood or enhance the colors in your home.
