Impact of LED Lighting in the Retail Environment

Since the days of Leonardo da Vinci’s groundbreaking work on the effects of lighting on color in the late 1400s, artists, designers, colorists, and scientists alike have contributed to a large body of work on the topic. This work ultimately led to the establishment by the International Commission on Illumination (CIE) of illuminant standards under which color is evaluated for compliance with a specification for color difference, metamerism, and other color quality attributes. These standard illuminants, which include daylight (D50 for graphic arts, D65 for industrial uses), Standard Illuminant A (incandescent), and a variety for fluorescent lighting, have remained largely unchanged for some time, allowing suppliers of light booths and other lighting solutions to provide color-critical environments with standard illuminant conditions that enable visual evaluation under controlled lighting conditions. In addition, ISO, ASTM, AATCC, and other organizations have established viewing standards relevant to their specific industry segments. This has allowed suppliers and users of computer color measurement systems to be aligned on the computation of color and color difference values.