CONTRIBUTORS | PAINTING
How Light Influences Color The same paint sample will look different in changing light conditions during the day
SHELDON IBARA
Steve Johnson/Unsplash
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or many of us living in Hawaii, we have the frequent fortune to enjoy the colorful images of a rainbow due to our tropical island climate. We may even have memorized all seven colors by the acronym ROYGBIV: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Those seven are the colors on the visible light spectrum, which is the only wave that the human eye can detect. When all these colors are combined, they create white light. While white and natural light will provide the truest representation of any color, it is best to view a color sample for painting under the same lighting condition that will be applied. Natural light or sunlight affect colors in different ways throughout the day. In the morning, the light appears yellow. At noon, because the sun is farthest away from the horizon, it is bluish and cooler. In the afternoon, the light is warmer and more red. The location of a room also influences color by the way natural light fills the space. North-facing rooms look blue, making it feel cool, while south-facing rooms appear orange and warmer. East-facing and west-facing rooms both embrace a sense of warmth at sunrise and sunset with yellow and reddish light on their walls. Besides natural light, artificial lighting can affect color in a room as well. One that has been around for generations is incandescent lighting. It produces an amber light and complements warmer colors such as reds, oranges and yellows. Fluorescent light is more bluish in color and generates a cooler effect. It works better with blues and greens but dulls warmer colors.
Let’s say you have fluorescent light in a north-facing room. If you want to create an ambiance that is cooler, painting it a green or blue would work best. Likewise, painting an east-facing room with a yellow color will complement incandescent lighting for a warmer feeling. At times, however, you may want to choose a color with an opposing lighting condition. Perhaps you want to paint a room yellow under fluorescent light. In this example, you would need to tone the paint with a tinge of blue tint. This will offset the warm yellow color and achieve the coolness of the fluorescent lighting. When lighting conditions in a room are limited, color and gloss level can influence the way in which remaining light is distributed throughout the
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space. Light reflectance value (LRV) is the amount of light that a paint color reflects. It is measured on a scale from 0% to 100%, with 0 being “absolute black” (all light absorbed) and 100 being “pure white” (all light reflected). For most colors, however, the range would typically fall between 5% and 85%. Lighter paint colors have higher LRVs compared to darker colors, as more light is reflected than absorbed. When looking for the light reflectance value, it can be found on a color swatch, in the index of a color fan deck, or on the paint manufacturer’s website. Gloss level is a measurement in which light is deflected off a surface from a 60-degree angle and measured on a scale from 0 to 100 units. Depending upon the paint manufacturer, the levels are usually flat, eggshell, satin,
