[Pavel]

I have recently started offering my photos to galleries for sale and having something unique would help. At the same time, for a long time, I was frustrated by color gamut of papers being too small to capture bright and vivid colors I sometimes wish to show. For a very long time, I was frustrated that after very careful color management and trying to get color and brightness just so, my finished photos are placed in dim corners or are illuminated by artificial light with wrong temperature, completely changing (degrading the image quality) the photo I created. The solution to all that is creating backlight image.

LED lightboxes can be thin and no more expensive than a frame and signage (transparent film with a diffusion layer backing) material is readily available. As I see it, the biggest problem is to color manage this system. ICC profiles would have to be created (I think) for every lightbox product depending on the lightbox brightness and the temperature of the light emitted and of course the exact color and absorptive properties of the signage material. I never created an ICC profile and always used downloaded profiles provided by paper manufacturers. Can you help me? Advice, links to equipment/procedures etc. - anything would help. Thanks

Pavel

[shuttertalk]

Interesting idea Pavel... let us know how you go with this.

Even though it will be back-lit, do you think the front / ambient lighting will also have an effect? Also, you might have to deal with reflections as well since the surface will be glossy. It would be similar to viewing a TV or a digital photo frame right? Just trying to think in terms of that...

[Pavel]

Julian, I expect that ambient lighting may have some effect but a relatively modest one relative to backlighting. If you look at the same adds in different outlets of the same restaurant chain they appear to look the same despite different ambient illumination and I do not perceive any obvious changes at night and during the day despite large window areas. I am sure that the effect is measurable, but I suspect not "field relevant". There is no glass in front of the photo (unless you wish one to be there and so I do not expect reflections to be a problem. Backlighting will also reduce appearance of reflections. In practice, indoor and outdoor adds do not seem to be plagued by distracting reflections. For me the main issue is color management, cost and quality control on the lightboxes.