Color Management for Backlit Displays

Color Management

Light box color temperature varies greatly, depending on the light source (LED or fluorescent). This leads to colors that don't appear as they should, as the profile used was built using a color temperature other than what the display lamps are delivering.

Fluorescent Lamps

Unfortunately , there are no color standards when light boxes are using fluorescent tubes (cool white, daylight, warm white, etc.). Anyone can use any existing lamp, regardless of its color-rendering index. Sometimes changing out the lamps with tubes of a more correct color temperature will give a better rendering to the installed graphic rathering than reprinting over and over. If possible test your graphic against the light box it will be installed in, but check the lamps color temperature first. Building media profiles is problematic, as the majority of spectrophotometers don’t have the backlighting capability for those types of materials.

One typical procedure is to do a double strike of the printed piece. The printer prints the image with double the density of a normally profiled image output. This tends to give just enough additional density to adjust for the light output from the majority of light boxes that are on the market. But this does not work for display boxes that need to have day light viewing with the display lights turned off. The other option is to find a spectrophotometer that has the ability to read transmissive spectral data -- these will typically be more expensive that a traditional spectrophotometer that does not read transmissive spectral data. For color managing using backlit materials, try using a profile as if the material is white paper or a bright generic vinyl and see where you are.