Color Temperature

There’s no single color that defines white. We all know that white light contains a mixture of all other colors, but there is actually a wide range of colors that our brain interprets as being white. That’s why the white from an old fluorescent bulb and a halogen desk lap still look white. Color temperature is one way we can describe the different types of white. A better way to describe white is to describe the color using a CIE illuminant. D65 is such an illuminant and is the formal standard for the Internet and gaming, as well as HDTV, video, and film. This is what all TVs and monitors should be calibrated to out of the box, but that’s rarely the case. (More on this later.)

Many manufacturers adopt a cooler temperature for white. They do this because they think you are stupid. By choosing a cooler temperature, all the colors will be off from what the game developers and filmmakers intended. The catch is that bluer monitors and TVs (and even diamonds) will appear brighter. Manufacturers think that if you see a bright TV, you’re more likely to buy it and assume it is better… Other manufacturers do a better job and may ship at the higher color temperature, but then have a setting called “Pro” mode or sRGB mode.

You might be wondering why we’re evaluating D65, an illuminant, instead of a color temperature of 6500K. The way to think about it is that on a chart of all possible colors, the 6500K color temperature is actually a line of white whereas D65 is a specific point of white. D65 reflects the true standard that studios calibrate to, and is actually 6504K. (D50 is an alternative illuminant used for calibration and is typically used in the print industry. This represents 5002 kelvin and helps artists better mimic what the printed output, when viewed under incandescent lamps.) Are these subtle distinctions between CIE illuminants and color temperature important? Yes, because review websites that try to quantify color accuracy using DeltaE measurements need to take this into account. DeltaE is the difference between what’s measured and what you’d expect from a blackbody radiator (the color temperature). A well-calibrated D50 monitor might have a DeltaE as high as 4.21 if you’re comparing it to a blackbody 5000K color temperature – it’s not supposed to be equal.

Enough shop talk, let’s take a look at the monitors.