The human eye can distinguish more than a million different shades of colour. Daylight is true colour and all colours, and shades of colour, are distinguishable one from the other no matter if it’s cloudy or sunny.

Some artificial lighting is not true colour and the degree of purity is compared with daylight with an index known as a colour rendering index. Fluorescent tubes typically have a colour rendering index of 80 which means they are 80% of the purity of daylight. It’s very important in retail outlets that the lighting is as close to daylight as possible so that consumers can see the real colour of the merchandise when compared with daylight. This is generally achieved with illuminants that have a colour rendering index over 90 and a colour temperature of 4000 degrees Kelvin.

If you are unsure if your merchandise is displayed under the best colour lighting then contact FixLIGHT for a free assessment of your lighting installation and ways to improve it.