I believe we have a fundamental problem with how we document and talk about color.

That problem shows up in communication between…

• Designers and Programmers

• Designers and Manufacturers

• Designers and Clients

• and increasingly - Designers and Designers.

Not very long ago, lighting teams defaulted to gel colors as a shared shorthand for intent: “Rosco 80,” “LEE 79,” “GAM 850,” “Apollo 4250.” Those references carried an implied context - a known light source (tungsten, halogen, HMI) paired with a subtractive material.

This worked because the ecosystem was relatively constrained. There were only so many lamp manufacturers, making a limited range of spectral distributions. This created a fairly predictable relationship between source, filter, and output.

With the industry’s shift to LED sources, our color-mixing methodology changed almost overnight - from primarily subtractive systems to overwhelmingly additive ones. That transition happened faster than our shared vocabulary evolved to support it.

In some ways, advances in control technology offer the illusion that these issues have been solved. Consoles present color pickers, virtual gels, and chromaticity diagrams that imply a clear understanding of a fixture’s capabilities.

In reality, these representations are often approximations. They typically do not account for factors dimming behavior, power correction functions, channel interactions, of lumen output.

The result is an increase in complexity surrounding matching fixtures to each other and our ability to describe what we want to see coming out of each light.

Over the past few months, I’ve had this conversation with a wide range of lighting professionals. We’ve mostly come to the conclusion that we’ve got more questions than answers. I’d like to investigate further! Would you be willing to share some of your thoughts?

Thank you!

Chris Werner

Lunar Telephone Company