Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Metamerism and viewing giclee under different lighting conditions
When it comes to judging the color accuracy of your giclee, it is important to understand that what your giclee printing company is using to judge color (as far as lighting goes) is likely different from the environment in your home or office. You may take that perfectly matching gicle home and realize there it does not match the original. What happened? Metamerism! Metamerism is when 2 color samples that match under certain lights do not under a different source. For example a giclee could perfectly match under daylight balanced lights to an original and look different under incandescent lights. Metamerism is a fact of life and there is really nothing that can be done to eliminate it. Pigments in an original differ from pigments used in a giclee. When lights with different spectral properties hit these chemicals, the pigments respond in their own way. Some giclee pigments and printers are prone to more metamerism than others, but claims by some manufacturers or giclee printers that their product is free from metamerism should be taken with a grain of salt. It is impossible to make a giclee or any other form of art reproduction and have it match the original under all types of lighting conditions.
