Lighting For lighting building interiors, it is often important to take into account the color temperature of illumination. A warmer (i.e., a lower color temperature) light is often used in public areas to promote relaxation, while a cooler (higher color temperature) light is used to enhance concentration, for example in schools and offices. CCT dimming for LED technology is regarded as a difficult task, since binning, age and temperature drift effects of LEDs change the actual color value output. Here feedback loop systems are used, for example with color sensors, to actively monitor and control the color output of multiple color mixing LEDs.
Aquaculture In
fishkeeping, color temperature has different functions and foci in the various branches. • In freshwater aquaria, color temperature is generally of concern only for producing a more attractive display. Lights tend to be designed to produce an attractive spectrum, sometimes with secondary attention paid to keeping the plants in the aquaria alive. • In a saltwater/reef
aquarium, color temperature is an essential part of tank health. Within about 400 to 3000 nanometers, light of shorter wavelength can
penetrate deeper into water than longer wavelengths, providing essential energy sources to the algae hosted in (and sustaining) coral. This is equivalent to an increase of color temperature with water depth in this spectral range. Because coral typically live in shallow water and receive intense, direct tropical sunlight, the focus was once on simulating this situation with 6500 K lights.
Digital photography In
digital photography, the term color temperature sometimes refers to remapping of color values to simulate variations in ambient color temperature. Most digital cameras and raw image software provide presets simulating specific ambient values (e.g., sunny, cloudy, tungsten, etc.) while others allow explicit entry of white balance values in kelvins. These settings vary color values along the blue–yellow axis, while some software includes additional controls (sometimes labeled "tint") adding the magenta–green axis, and are to some extent arbitrary and a matter of artistic interpretation.
Photographic film Photographic emulsion film does not respond to lighting color identically to the human retina or visual perception. An object that appears to the observer to be white may turn out to be very blue or orange in a photograph. The
color balance may need to be corrected during printing to achieve a neutral color print. The extent of this correction is limited since color film normally has three layers sensitive to different colors and when used under the "wrong" light source, every layer may not respond proportionally, giving odd color casts in the shadows, although the mid-tones may have been correctly white-balanced under the enlarger. Light sources with discontinuous spectra, such as fluorescent tubes, cannot be fully corrected in printing either, since one of the layers may barely have recorded an image at all. Photographic film is made for specific light sources (most commonly daylight film and
tungsten film), and, used properly, will create a neutral color print. Matching the
sensitivity of the film to the color temperature of the light source is one way to balance color. If tungsten film is used indoors with incandescent lamps, the yellowish-orange light of the
tungsten incandescent lamps will appear as white (3200 K) in the photograph. Color negative film is almost always daylight-balanced, since it is assumed that color can be adjusted in printing (with limitations, see above). Color transparency film, being the final artefact in the process, has to be matched to the light source or filters must be used to correct color.
Filters on a camera lens, or
color gels over the light source(s) may be used to correct color balance. When shooting with a bluish light (high color temperature) source such as on an overcast day, in the shade, in window light, or if using tungsten film with white or blue light, a yellowish-orange filter will correct this. For shooting with daylight film (calibrated to 5600 K) under warmer (low color temperature) light sources such as sunsets, candlelight or
tungsten lighting, a bluish (e.g. #80A) filter may be used. More-subtle filters are needed to correct for the difference between, say 3200 K and 3400 K tungsten lamps or to correct for the slightly blue cast of some flash tubes, which may be 6000 K. If there is more than one light source with varied color temperatures, one way to balance the color is to use daylight film and place color-correcting gel filters over each light source. Photographers sometimes use color temperature meters. These are usually designed to read only two regions along the visible spectrum (red and blue); more expensive ones read three regions (red, green, and blue). However, they are ineffective with sources such as fluorescent or discharge lamps, whose light varies in color and may be harder to correct for. Because this light is often greenish, a magenta filter may correct it. More sophisticated
colorimetry tools can be used if such meters are lacking.
Windows 11 22H2 have supports for Auto Color Management (ACM) which further optimized for
OLED monitors by reading
EDID data. Apple
iOS,
iPadOS and
macOS use
sRGB and
DCI-P3 as default display color spaces.
TV, video, and digital still cameras The
NTSC and
PAL TV norms call for a compliant TV screen to display an electrically black and white signal (minimal color saturation) at a color temperature of 6500 K. On many consumer-grade televisions, there is a very noticeable deviation from this requirement. However, higher-end consumer-grade televisions can have their color temperatures adjusted to 6500 K by using a preprogrammed setting or a custom calibration. Current versions of
ATSC explicitly call for the color temperature data to be included in the data stream, but old versions of ATSC allowed this data to be omitted. In this case, current versions of ATSC cite default colorimetry standards depending on the format. Both of the cited standards specify a 6500 K color temperature. Most video and digital still cameras can adjust for color temperature by zooming into a white or neutral colored object and setting the manual "white balance" (telling the camera that "this object is white"); the camera then shows true white as white and adjusts all the other colors accordingly. White-balancing is necessary especially when indoors under fluorescent lighting and when moving the camera from one lighting situation to another. Most cameras also have an automatic white balance function that attempts to determine the color of the light and correct accordingly. While these settings were once unreliable, they are much improved in today's digital cameras and produce an accurate white balance in a wide variety of lighting situations. However, in
NTSC-J and
NTSC-C standards, 9300 K color temperature is recommended. TVs and projectors sold in Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Philippines are usually adopt 9300 K as default settings. But for compatibility reasons,
computer monitors sold in these country/region are usually adopt 6500 K as default settings; these color temperature settings are usually tuneable in
OSD menu.
Artistic application via control of color temperature Video
camera operators can white-balance objects that are not white, downplaying the color of the object used for white-balancing. For instance, they can bring more warmth into a picture by white-balancing off something that is light blue, such as faded blue denim; in this way white-balancing can replace a filter or lighting gel when those are not available.
Cinematographers do not "white balance" in the same way as video camera operators; they use techniques such as filters, choice of film stock,
pre-flashing, and, after shooting,
color grading, both by exposure at the labs and also digitally. Cinematographers also work closely with set designers and lighting crews to achieve the desired color effects. For artists, most pigments and papers have a cool or warm cast, as the human eye can detect even a minute amount of saturation. Gray mixed with yellow, orange, or red is a "warm gray". Green, blue, or purple create "cool grays". This sense of temperature is the reverse of that of real temperature; bluer is described as "cooler" even though it corresponds to a higher-temperature
black body.
Lighting designers sometimes select
filters by color temperature, commonly to match light that is theoretically white. Since fixtures using
discharge type lamps produce a light of a considerably higher color temperature than do
tungsten lamps, using the two in conjunction could potentially produce a stark contrast, so sometimes fixtures with
HID lamps, commonly producing light of 6000–7000 K, are fitted with 3200 K filters to emulate tungsten light. Fixtures with color mixing features or with multiple colors (if including 3200 K), are also capable of producing tungsten-like light. Color temperature may also be a factor when selecting
lamps, since each is likely to have a different color temperature. ==Correlated color temperature ==