Architects, engineers, interior and industrial designers, colorists and color stylists, and lighting

designers all need to understand color. This chapter has been prepared to increase mutual
understanding among those responsible for creating the environment and making it visible and
visually functional. Electromagnetic radiant energy provides a physical stimulus that enters the
eye and causes the sensation of color (see Chapter 3, Vision and Perception). The spectral
characteristics of the stimulus are integrated by the visual system and cannot be differentiated
without the use of an instrument. Because the color and the color rendering properties of light
sources are increasingly important in the design of an illuminated environment, lighting
designers need a good working knowledge of the vocabulary and practices of modern color
science. The aesthetic use of color to produce pleasing interiors requires coordination between
the interior designer and the person designing the lighting. Each needs to know how to use
color to help provide the desired brightness levels and distributions. Today's lighting designer
is faced not only with a choice of color in light sources but also with wide variations in color
rendering properties of light sources that can be identical in color.1 To provide lighting
designers with a basis for their studies in color, the IESNA committees have developed several
reports2-5 that provide useful background material for this chapter. In addition, the chapter
concludes with examples of several fields of special applications. Other chapters contain brief
discussions of color, with specialized applications. Information on colorimetry of light sources
is not contained in this chapter, but is found in IES LM-16-1984. 2 Color is a fundamental
parameter of vision and perception. Discussions related to color threshold discrimination,
color vision abnormalities, visual processing channels, and perceptions of lighting are provided
in Chapter 3, Vision and Perception.

BASIC CONCEPTS OF COLOR Color Terms In the Glossary, color terms are defined carefully to
provide a way of distinguishing between several commonly confused meanings of the word
"color." Whether one makes strict use of the definitions or not, an understanding of the
purpose and need for the differentiations that are made is basic to an understanding of the
subject. For additional information on color, see Plates 1, 2, and 3 at the end of this chapter.
The perceived color, the color perceived as belonging to an object or light source, is something
perceived instantaneously. It is so common an experience that many people find it hard to
understand why color is not simple to explain in a few easy lessons. But a color perception
results from the complex interaction of many factors including the characteristics of the object
or light source, the light incident on an object, the surround, the viewing direction, observer
characteristics, and the observer's adaptation. Characteristics of object, light, surround, and
observer can vary both spectrally and directionally, each in a different manner. The observer
might vary in regard to time of seeing, what was seen last, or how attention was focused in
relation to the time of seeing. Unless the circumstances of a former situation with which the
layperson, interior designer, or lighting designer might be familiar are similar enough in all
important respects, a new situation cannot be responded to by reference to past experience
alone. Laypersons can cope with a new situation by making certain assumptions or by limiting
themselves to the use of conditions with which they are familiar. But lighting designers cannot
do this if they are to deal with all types of architectural situations, with all types of light
sources, and with requirements that will fit new or specialized situations. Color (sometimes
called psychophysical color) is defined as the characteristic of light by which an observer can
distinguish between patches of light of the same size, shape, and structure. It reduces itself to
a basic description of light in terms of amounts of radiant power at the different wavelengths
of the visually effective spectrum, which for most practical purposes is considered to extend
from 380 to 780 nm. (To identify colors due in part to fluorescent dyes activated by energy in
the ultraviolet [UV] region, it is necessary in specifying the spectral distribution of a light
source to extend the wavelength range beyond that which is visually effective, down to 300
nm in the UV region, particularly for sources that are intended to reproduce daylight.) Identical
colors are produced not only by identical spectral power distributions (SPDs) but also by many
different SPDs. Such different SPDs are called metamers. The color of an object, or object
color, is defined as the color of light reflected or transmitted by an object when it is
illuminated by a standard light source. For this purpose, a Commission Internationale de
l'Éclairage (CIE) standard observer, using standardized conditions of observation, must be
assumed. The word "color" often is used to cover all three meanings discussed above. When
the assumed standard conditions are satisfied, then there is little need for distinguishing
between the perceived color, the psychophysical color, and the object color. However, if
designers are to handle new problems in color, including new light sources that can vary
widely in spectral distributions, they must know the differences between the meanings of
color and keep these distinctions in mind even when using the one term to cover all three. The
term "color temperature" is widely used--and often misused--in illumination work. It relates to
the color of a completely radiating (blackbody) source at a particular temperature and of light
sources that color-match such a body. The color temperature of a light source is the absolute
temperature of a blackbody radiator having a color equal to that of the light source. Its
correlated color temperature is the absolute temperature of a blackbody whose color most
nearly resembles that of the light source.