I take photographs at a number of evening events, such as cycling and fell running. If I process the images that evening, there seems to be a number of differences in the colours and "brightness" of the image. One possibility is the light bulb in the room I process the images in. Isit better to wait until I have natural daylight, or is there a type of bulb I could get to help me start my work as soon as I get home.
The only way to be utterly sure that your images are correct with regard to brightness, colour balance etc. is to manage every aspect of your post-processing that can affect it. In short, that's your monitor calibration, and the lighting conditions in the room that monitor is in.
The first step is to A) Have a decent monitor. Most cheap laptops have horrible screens, and even some decent ones too. A decent IPS or S-PVA (quite rare these days) screen is the first recommendation therefore, and B) Ensure that screen is calibrated well. I recommend either the X-Rite Color Munki Display or the X-Rite i1 Display Pro.
Then you need to think about the room you're editing in, and its lighting conditions. To give an example, in my room here I have a Eizo ColorEdge monitor thats hardware profiled - very accurate, but but if I open my blinds during the day and try to edit, i notice some PERCEIVED colour shifts in my screen. I say perceived because they are not real, it's my eyes/brain making it shift as the colour temperature of the daylight shifts: At sunset on a clear day, my screen appears to have a green cast because the ambient light is red/orange. On a very overcast day, my screen appears yellow/warm due to the ambient light being very cold and blue. As a result, if I edit on a cloudy day with the blinds open, I'll be compensating for the perceived warmth that's not actually there, and as a result my images will be cold when viewed properly.
So, use black out blinds during the day, or only edit at night.
Then there's the lighting in the room. If you just use normal domestic lighting, it will most likely be around 3400K... which is very warm, and your calibrated screen may appear very cold... so again, you'll be subconsciously, or even consciously adjusting for this and making your images cooler than they actually appear.
Step 1: Decent monitor calibrated to 6500K which is the most widely used white point reference. Calibrate to a luminance point of 100cd/m2 which is probably the best brightness match for a moderate to dimply lit room.
Step 2: Prevent daylight coming in during the day.
Step3: Use room lighting that matches your calibrated white point.
Ideally, money no object, you should use a known full spectrum D65 lightsource with a CRI (Colour Rendering Index) of at least 90, and something like the
Just Normlicht range of lighting is ideal. However these are expensive and for non-professional use is probably overkill. A much cheaper, but very satisfactory solution is to use something like
this. So long as it's well shaded and not too bright, that's a tri-phosphor tube with a high CRI and 6500K. Another solution is the good old
"Pro-Lite" compact fluorescent. I use one of these. It has a high CRI, and it's 6500K. Long life, instant start, and will give you no problems. It's available in bayonet and screw fitting. Get the 11watt one though.
You do not want your room lighting bright. A shaded 11watt Pro-Lite or a 16w T8 tube should be ideal for most rooms.
One last thing, pay attention to your walls. No matter how accurate your lighting, if it's reflecting off yellow walls for example, you'll get yellow light. Ideally, white or neutral walls is what you want. I go one further and have painted my walls with
this but that's not really necessary... just paint the walls white.
