Color Fidelity

Environmental Factors

The colors in the picture hanging on your wall match your sofa in the morning, but not in the evening.

Here are some things that can affect the color you are seeing:

• Although the color of sunlight itself remains relatively constant, other circumstances which affect it continually change throughout the day. Differences in cloud coverage, the amount of humidity in the atmosphere and the angle the light is striking the object affect the color of those pigments. example: Monet's well-known series of paintings of haystacks and cathedrals exploited these types of changes throughout the day.
  
  
• Light sources other than the sun have different temperatures or color casts. Incandescent lighting tends to be warmer and more yellowish, whereas normal flourescent lighting is cooler or more bluish. Special color-balanced bulbs are made that simulate sunlight, but most homes and offices don't use them. example: Photographs using daylight film produce yellowish pictures when used indoors with standard incandescent lights.
  
  
• There is an effect called dichroism in which two objects may appear to be the same color under one set of lighting conditions, but when a different kind of lighting is introduced their apparent colors are strikingly different.
  
  
• Surrounding objects in the room can affect color awareness. example: Painting the walls in a room a different color can affect the color relationships of objects in that room. Reflected light also assumes some of the color characteristics from which it reflects.