In article ,
Andrew Gabriel wrote:
Another area confused with colour temperature is the nature of the
spectrum a lamp emits -- continuous at one extreme and a few discrete
lines at the other. This is completely unrelated to colour temperature,
but unfortunately the lighting industry marketing people confuse the
issue for using terms which imply a continuous spectrum when they
really mean high colour temperature. The two properties are not
related. Descrete line sources, or sources which are continuous but
are not even or have some holes/peaks in the range can cause colours
to be washed out, simply because they happen to be missing some of
the components a particular pigment responds to, of have an over-
abundance in some part of the spectrum. Generally your eyes are
quite forgiving of descrete line light sources, providing there are
enough lines covering the visible spectum and they are not too badly
matched. TV cameras and anything else which splits an image up into
colour components and reassembles it at the other end can be a lot
less forgiving though.

You've put it far better than I ever could, Andrew, - thanks. Continuous
even spectrum lighting is essential if you need to match colours - or
indeed even expect them to look 'right'. And with low level lighting as
you might want while using a monitor or viewing TV, it's equally as
important if you wish to see the colours as intended. Of course, with TV,
a vast proportion of the public don't care - the brighter and more
'primary' the colours on their screen the happier they are - regardless.

--
* What do they call a coffee break at the Lipton Tea Company? *

Dave Plowman London SW 12
RIP Acorn