HACKER Q&A
📣 PaulHoule

Light Bulbs for Good Color Discrimination?


I have a hobby of making prints with an inkjet printer and this requires me to make fine visual distinctions. I necessarily do a lot of work in the evenings under artificial light.

The main light in the area is an RGB strip which is terrible when set for "warm" light (have a hard time telling which side of the paper is the bright side) and better when set for "cool" light.

I'm looking for an bulb with an ordinary socket to set in a gooseneck lamp on my desk to add supplementary light in a small area. I don't believe the "color rendition index" is meaningful, don't care much about energy efficiency, lifetime, or cost, and don't want to buy a whole case.

Looking at the marketing on web sites for light bulbs I'm not even sure if the people who wrote the copy have eyes -- I haven't seen any that convince me that their products are better than the others.

Any suggestions?


  👤 detaro Accepted Answer ✓
get a halogen bulb, or go look for fancy high-CRI (and sources making it believable they actually are) LEDs.