In the modern rhythm of life, the vision of each person is subjected to tremendous loads every day: computer monitors, television screens and other gadgets constantly flash before your eyes both at work and at home. More and more people began to think about the health of their eyesight, trying to create acceptable conditions for it.
One of the factors that affect visual acuity is indoor light. The color of the lamp light can affect the perception of the interior of the room, emphasizing the florist or, conversely, distorting. You should decide which light is better: cold or warm.
The relationship of light and vision
You should not worry about the deterioration of eye health due to exposure to light, since it does not have a special effect. But the psychoemotional mood of a person and his mood will still depend on the shade of lighting in the room .
Warm light helps to relax faster and gives you a good rest, while cold light, on the contrary, invigorates and sets up the work process. Which light to choose - cold or warm? Each of them will be appropriate in a specific situation and in specific circumstances.
What color temperature of lighting fixtures exist?
To determine what the lighting from the LED or energy-saving lamp will look like, you should look at the color temperature indicator, which is usually written on the package.
The unit of measurement is Kelvin. The lower the value, the more yellow the light from the lamp will be. Lighting from a bulb with a high color temperature has a bluish tint. There are three main colors of lighting:
- white warm - 2700-3500K;
- neutral or natural white - from 3500 to 5000K;
- cold white varies from 5000 to 5400K.
What are the differences between warm lighting?
Warm or cold light in the apartment? Light of a warm white shade with the usual yellowish tone is considered comfortable for a person’s eyes, while his eyes quickly relax and rest after a busy day. Such a light is symbolized in a person with a yellow sun rising in the morning or setting at sunset.
Such a light source can be obtained from simple incandescent lamps and halogen models. Additionally, the store has luminescent and LED devices with radiation of a warm spectrum.
Which room is the best warm lighting for?
- Living room. It is recommended to equip rooms created specifically for relaxation and comfortable pastime in which a cozy and relaxed atmosphere is created, equipped with tepid light. Here, all family members can gather in the evening to have fun in their free time or have dinner. For the living room, diffusing chandeliers are best suited.
- Kitchen. In this room, warm lighting is best installed above the dining area, for example, above a table. This will help make the dishes more palatable in appearance.
- Bathroom. Warm lighting is recommended in the area where a person takes baths. It is this color around that will help to relax after a hard day.
- Bedroom. The main room in the house, which more than others requires warm soft lighting. Here, light of a warm shade will help create a feeling of comfort and tranquility, and will give your eyes relaxation.
Warm and cold light lamps are used by designers for different purposes. So warm lighting is used to enhance the saturation of interior items in soft tones. Cold shades, on the contrary, in this light cease to attract attention, merging with the environment. Blue and green palettes under warm lighting are distorted due to the fact that the light from such a source does not have rays of a similar spectrum.
How do objects change under warm lighting?
When using light sources with such lamps in a room, surrounding objects, depending on the coolness of the tone, can change as follows:
- blue can change to greenish;
- blue often loses all its saturation, becomes faded;
- dark blue changes to black;
- purple under certain lighting conditions can change in the eyes of a person to red.
For this reason, when compiling the interior, taking into account the benefits for the eyes, everything needs to be thought out in advance. It is important to remember that warm lighting can degrade the appearance of a room, make shades unpleasant to perceive.
Natural white lighting
Is warm or cold light better for the eyes? Halogen and some fluorescent lamps help to get light in the most similar to natural white. The color palette when using lamps of this type almost does not distort reality. It is best to install them in the following rooms:
- children’s;
- hallway;
- working area of the kitchen;
- in the place where the person is used to reading - in the bedroom above the bed or in any convenient place of the apartment;
- nearby with a mirror - this will help convey an accurate skin tone. At the same time, it is important to remember that it is important to position the lamps correctly in relation to the mirror and the reflective surface, otherwise the person looking at him will constantly squint at the reflected light.
Cold colors indoors
Cold lighting is symbolized by the winter white sun. Most often it is used in offices, as well as in all places where you need to create a working mood.
Which light is better warm or cold? Neutral and cool color palettes are recommended for lighting work areas in which a person needs to be as focused as possible and concentrate on the upcoming work. Neutral and cool colors are best suited for areas that use both artificial and natural light.
It is important to remember that the cold luminous flux is perceived by the eyes of a person more vividly and intensely. Warm white and cold white light differ greatly in their place of use. Lamps with cold lighting are most often used:
- in the kitchen, since here when cooking food, additional lighting of greater intensity is important;
- in the office - just such a color will help to quickly assemble and enhances the overall performance of a person;
- in the bathroom, near the shower stall - cold white light will help you to quickly cheer up and not feel sleepy;
- in living rooms and bedrooms, designers advise supplementing lighting with cold light lamps if the rooms have a lot of free space, as well as elements of modern design.
The colors of design objects in a room under such lighting can also vary slightly, but this only applies to a warm shade, which are very few in modern style. In that case, the orange, red and yellow colors will look purple, brown and greenish, respectively. Green and blue hues, on the contrary, will begin to seem brighter and more intense.
What else do you need to pay attention to?
To choose the right lighting source for a room, you need to pay attention not only to colors, but also to other parameters. All lamps on sale can be classified by the following parameters:
- The principle of operation - halogen, LED, fluorescent and incandescent lamps known to many
- Light bulb shape. The most common include tubular, spherical and pear-shaped, as well as spots (have the shape of a mushroom)
- Efficiency. The highest efficiency continues to remain with LED light sources.
- Price. Incandescent lamps are the cheapest, and LEDs are the most expensive. Expensive models of light sources are environmentally friendly, and also consume significantly less electricity.
To determine what the room will look like when the selected lamp is screwed into the light source, before buying, you should additionally pay attention to the color rendering index of the lamp.
The letter Ra is used to designate it. It is best that the value is 90 or higher, which will help to see only the natural colors of objects in the room. If Ra is less than 80, then all shades are likely to be highly distorted.
Why do I need to choose the right lighting?
Are warm or cold light lamps better? With the creation and active dissemination of lED-technologies, a person was able not only to save electricity, but also to choose a shade of lighting depending on the functionality of the room. Warm white and cold white light may be selected depending on the following factors:
- Mood and planned human activities. Some colors help to cheer up and feel tuned to work, others lead to relaxation. This factor is considered very convenient for rooms intended for different purposes.
- Perception of the interior and surrounding objects, attracting interest. A subtle shade can greatly change the color perception of things around. This is what many designers use when creating new interiors, as well as marketers with the goal of attracting passing people to the windows on which the goods are displayed.
It is important to remember that the perception of colors and shades around each person is individual. One should not be afraid to make new decisions and improvise with the color temperature.
The effect of warm color on space
The cream, brown, yellow and red colors appear most clearly in warm light. Cold tones under him begin to get very dark to change the tone. So, blue can become greenish and blue unsightly.
Designers recommend luminaires with a color temperature from 2700 to 3000K to be used in a room where the walls and other main areas are made in warm colors. It is these colors that look less bright and are well suited for small rooms. Living room, which has a lot of free space, may look poorly lit or visually reduced in size.
Which styles are best used?
This type of lighting symbolizes calmness, ease, and therefore is best suited for home interiors. Without warm elements in the interior just can not do. They are considered indispensable for rooms in which there is a lot of wood, textiles, aged metal and other materials of a traditional type.
Lamps with a color temperature of up to 3000K will be perfectly combined with fabric lampshades, open chandeliers of the retro era, antique lamps that imitate candles.
Styles for warm lighting can be as follows: modern, eco, vintage, retro, classic, traditional, as well as rustic. Almost all ethnic designs blend well with it.
Public and street use places
From public places, warm colors are used:
- restaurants, bars and cafes - areas where guests are located;
- beauty salons, halls of offices, recreation and communication areas;
- in small shoe stores in which you need to create an appropriate atmosphere;
- in jewelry stores, grocery stores: pastries, cheese, sausages;
- in the wards of medical institutions, where the patient needs to fully relax.
On the street are used for:
- outdoor cafe;
- squares and park;
- Playground near the houses.
What styles are used with?
Cold white rays are perceived by the human eyes more vividly and intensely, therefore they are used in spacious rooms to emphasize their size and fill the free space.
Such light will emphasize a room in which there are a large number of geometric shapes and contrasts. Cold light naturally looks in combination with hi-tech style, constructivism, minimalism, futurism and other innovative solutions.
It helps to highlight plastic, metal, chrome surfaces and other modern materials. It is also combined with the recently popular Scandinavian style and unchanged classics for many years.
Use in public and outdoor
In public places, this type of light source is used:
- offices, hospitals;
- schools, universities;
- manufacturing enterprises and their warehouses;
- shops with products and goods (for example, dishes made of silver and white gold, household appliances, bottles of mineral water).
Cold light on the streets is used if you want to focus a person’s attention and focus on a specific object:
- roads, parking, gas station;
- stadiums and large areas;
- hangars and similar buildings.
In addition, it is used together with warm in architectural lighting.
Daylight
Lamps and fluorescent lights are well suited for use in any public place. They will look good in the cafe hall, training rooms, and production rooms. Such models are suitable for rooms that use a combination of artificial and natural lighting (for example, classrooms and offices). Neutral lighting in such rooms will help prevent severe eye strain.
Experts do not recommend the use of lamps with different levels of lighting in the same room. It is forbidden to screw LED-lamps of warm and cold light into one chandelier or install small spotlights with different temperature indicators in a small room.
How to break the rules?
The use of light of different temperatures is allowed, if done correctly. To do this, you must follow these rules:
- Different colors can be combined, if we talk about the main and additional lighting. Accent lighting in this case will be small spotlights of a different tone. They are mounted in order to highlight individual objects or textures in the interior through narrow directed rays. The main color should have a different temperature. This solution is often used by professional designers.
- It is customary to use the warm and cold light of LED lamps in studio apartments, open offices and in other rooms in which network zoning needs to be created. To create this effect, warm and neutral light lamps are installed in different corners of the room, which helps to emphasize functionality. In this case, the light sources are arranged so that the rays of different temperatures intersect minimally. Reception is difficult to implement without an experienced designer.
- You can independently combine different lighting in one room if you combine the warm and cold light of bulbs.
Another method to combine different colors in one room is to develop lighting schemes. Sources with different colors should not be included at the same time, otherwise this will violate the concept. If you can’t choose the lighting yourself, it is best to turn to a professional designer. It is he who will pick up the color of the lighting fixtures depending on the interior and answer the question of which is better cold or warm light.