X-Rite has introduced a new tool for evaluating colors, the Judge LED light booth, to help brands manage their color workflows whilst switching from fluorescent to energy-efficient LED lighting.
Light booths allow brands to check the colors on their products throughout their supply chain, from design through to production to ensure consistency and accuracy in those colors. This is particularly useful in industries such as textiles, automotive, paint and coatings, plastics, and packaging.
However, those supply chains can stretch across multiple companies and countries where different light sources may be in use, for ambient lighting and for light booths. This could include fluorescent lighting though many areas have now upgraded to LEDs, driven partly by government regulations and by users looking for more energy efficient lighting. However, Fluorescent and LED illuminants have distinct spectral power distributions, or SPD, that can affect how users perceive different colors. So a light booth can help brands maintain color consistency This is particularly useful in industries such as textiles, automotive, paint and coatings, plastics, and packaging.
Albert S Laforet, director of strategic projects for X-Rite, explained, “Our custom-designed LEDs are optimized to offer the best SPD match for legacy fluorescent tubes, including U30, U35, CWF and TL84, ensuring a seamless integration into color workflows. This allows companies to meet regulatory requirements, ensure color consistency, and prevent color discrepancies before final product assembly.”
The light booth uses seven different light sources including directional D65 for defect inspection and surface evaluation for characteristics like orange peel, even on complex finishes. The seven different light sources can be customized from a wide-range of industry-standard illuminants, including LED D50, D65, LED-B2 3000K, LED 3500K, LED-B3 4000K, UV, A, CWF LED, TL84 LED, U30 LED, and U35 LED.
Since it uses LEDs, the unit does not require any warm up time and gives off very little heat. There’s an optional built-in calibrated monitor to help compare physical and digital samples.
Lafort concludes, “The Judge LED light booth integrates visual and digital workflows, allowing designers, material suppliers, and marketers to compare digital renderings or material twins with physical samples under precise LED lighting. Paired with X-Rite’s end-to-end digital color solutions – including color specification, measurement, Pantora virtual material creation, and color formulation and quality control software – companies can improve decision-making, streamline approval cycles, and accelerate time to market while ensuring consistent quality.”
The Judge LED light booth is available now worldwide.
