Hi, Patricia, Thank you for your response. It's an office in my home, a small bedroom about 10x10. The window is off to one side and it's 5' tall by about 2 1/2 feet wide. As for the furniture, it's a mishmash. I have an ugly 5-drawer metal file cabinet I'd like to replace. It has a large corner-unit desk that is a light wood color with a black top. I also have another light wood desk in there. I don't have any pictures, but in any case I'd be too embarrassed to post a photo as the room isn't gorgeous as what I always see on this web site! It's just a boring '70s tract house tiny bedroom which serves as my home office. Clients don't visit -- it's just me working in there. Right now the walls are stark white, and the room is in desperate need of paint. I want to keep it light but don't want to do stark white again. I want a light color that will be nice to look at while I slave away at my computer. Thanks for your input :-)

Pete, Again, instead of getting wound up on definitions it is IMO worthwhile to just test for yourself. Personally, again speaking as an engineer, it is much easier for me to "get" the concept at a technical level than ultimately at the aesthetic level where I have to determine whether I "like" the colour I'm getting, or not! I think if you try it, you may be able to work out on paper the technicalese of what you're seeing. Dollars to donuts you'll spend MUCH more time after that trying to figure out if you like the FS paint or if you prefer the non-FS! Paint and colour etc. are SO subjective, that it doesn't matter how many frequencies and colours there are in the paint, if they are not the ones you like, you aren't going to like the wall colour. This is what I found to be the case. Just like I rejected a tonne of BM colours, I also rejected a tonne of EK and Citron colours because they were just a bit too bright for me. I did however LOVE the Donald Kaufman colours. I had written up a post for you trying to give a technical definition of the interaction between light and colour in terms of modulations or cross-correlations of two frequency responses but then erased it coz it was too long. But if you think in terms of two signals - one the transfer function representing your paint colour and the other the transfer function of your incident light beam, which note, will be time-varying - and then realize that the output is the input transfer function correlated with the paint colour . Then hopefully things will become clearer. This is what Funcolours had been alluding to, also. The non-FS signal will be a band-pass signal at only a couple of frequencies with black providing a reduced gain at those frequencies. The FS will be a much wider signal profile, with no black and likely the dominant frequencies standing up beyond the signal floor by about the same amount as the non-FS signal where you might assume zero signal content outside the band. To me, this was the easiest way to comprehend the difference and that is why I say that it is much easier for me to understand the difference between the two paints at a technical level than at an aesthetic level and which is why it is almost irrationally frustrating to read your posts because you keep saying that as an engineer you want to understand this technically. Well, I think that with a little bit of seeng the stuff go down, it will be easier for you to work the technical bit out. To me, the harder part by far and away is, which is the more visually appetizing for me! :-) Is this helping? I am a control systems engineer but anyone who's take courses on Fourier transforms and is comfortable with the basics of signal processing should comprehend the concept?

Has nothing to do with emitting light. Artists and color scientists have narrow, singular areas of expertise when it comes to color. Often they believe because of that limited knowledge and expertise they know and are aware of EVERYTHING there is to know about color. Usually ends up they don't know squat about what happens with and to color from the holistic human experience of architecture and space. Mixing color and applying it to a canvass is random child's play compared to coloring three-dimensional structure. Testing different swatches of color under different colored light bulbs gives us nothing that is useful or meaningful. Remember the more colorants involved mixing the color the MORE metameric it becomes. Few colorants = more constancy. Thats why most commercial paint colors only use 1  4 colorants per color. Also a factor is cost. This is ultimately what regular paint manufacturers do not understand  they canÂt relate to WHY anyone would WANT a non-constant paint color. Why in the world would anyone want a paint color that shifts with the ever-changing natural light source in a room. As an industry, unpredictable and ever-changing paint colors is exactly what theyÂve worked tirelessly to AVOID. And now they are expected to believe that consumers will pay upwards of $50 for a can of paint that shifts and changes with the light. They are confused. Full spectrum is described as luminous because when compared to regular paint colors, it looks and feels like FS reflects more light back into the space. From a micro perspective within the paint color, particles of black colorant will keep most of the light that hits them. "Colored" colorant will absorb some light wavelengths and reflect what it cannot absorb  thatÂs fundamentally what color IS and DOES, right? Why is an apple red? Mixing color without black means odds are most all of the colorants in the color will reflect *some* portion of light back into the room and contribute to the atmosphere and the human visual perception of reflected color. Black doesnÂt do that  it keeps all the light it gets and the visual experience is different because of it. Black colorants contribute nothing back into the atmosphere. Some people say regular paints look dead in comparison to full spectrum. Many people will look at color from that micro perspective only when itÂs convenient or easy to see and understand. Sherwin Williams VinylSafe paint is my favorite example. SW will mix any of their colors that can be mixed in exterior base without black colorant. A big part of why itÂs "vinyl safe" is because there is no black in the VinylSafe formulas. The colors absorb less light or energy. No black in the formula means there is less energy absorption to convert to heat that could melt the vinyl siding. To say that the reflectance abilities of a paint color can be measured and noted as useful for one purpose, i.e. vinyl safe colors, yet at the same time say that it is not detectable from a human visual or significant from a color experience point of view is kind of ridiculous. Manipulating color for reflectance  or luminosity  goals at the micro level either makes a difference or it doesnÂt. CanÂt have it be true and perfectly reasonable on one hand yet not the other. As far as mimicking the healing and therapeutic qualities of natural sunlight, you have to be willing to go down that metaphysical path of beliefs and tenants. Crystals, singing bowls, SADD light treatments, chakras, and on and on. Full spectrum colors reflect at a different rate and at a different quality than regular paint colors  that is simply the fact of how they are constructed. HOW - or if - that translates into a deeply meaningful or not so meaningful physio-psychological experience of color is entirely dependent on the individual. Or Response B: Full spectrum mixed colors "work" the same way regular colors "work". Except the each "work" opposite ends of the color & light relationship or in a single word, metamerism. There are different kinds of metamerism. Regular paint manufacturers - and even one specialty/designer palette, Devine Paint - maximizes control of spectral curves so their colors are not prone to shifting, or in other words so they are less metameric. Metamerism for all intents and purposes is a dirty word in all corners of color world. Most all color professionals across various industry feel there is absolutely no practical use for colors that shift and metamerism is the enemy of mass production. Constancy is what everyone is after. Arguably, the purpose of color science and color labs is to find ways to plot and manage color so it is predictable. Color constancy is the intent with which paint manufacturers create their colors. At the most basic level, constancy is achieved by using the fewest colorants necessary. ThatÂs why black is such a staple in all commercial tints  well, that AND itÂs cheap compared to other colorants. Full spectrum in essence is the opposite. Plus, there is the holistic, New Age spin. The intent here is to mimic natural daylight by including representational amounts of each spectral hue in every can of paint. Applied to walls, full spectrum paint brings the energy of full spectrum, natural daylight and all the healing and nurturing benefits that some people believe are inherent of light. Each room has a quality of light. A unique bundle of wavelengths beaming in, bouncing around off walls and other surfaces. ItÂs all a matter of how you want to deploy color on the walls to interact and respond to that light source. A paint that is highly metameric and shifts and changes, or one that doesnÂt. I do not remember where I got this from. But itÂs a nice explanation of curves and metamerism: 4.6. Metamerism 4.6.1. Two samples can appear to have the same color under one type of illumination but may appear dissimilar under different lighting conditions. This phenomenon is one form of metamerism. A second form of metamerism occurs when two samples appear to be the same color under all lighting conditions, yet their reflectance or transmittance curves are different. Both forms of metamerism are due to differences in pigment compositions. It is important to note that two objects with different reflectance or transmittance curves can have identical colorimetric values (tristimulus values or chromaticity coordinates). Therefore, it is not recommended to use colorimetric values alone for detailed sample comparisons.

I suggest you get some books on full spectrum paint from your library on interlibrary loan. There are two by Donald Kaufman and one by Suzanne Butterfield about Donald Kaufman paints. I think the one by Butterfield has some basic FS paint formulas in it which may help you decide if you'd like to try something a bit more exotic, or want to try your hand at making your own. I have made my own FS mixes when the exact color I'm seeking in my mind's eye is not available. It is time consuming, and considering how much paint I have to buy to make the mixes, not really cheaper than going ahead and paying for FS pre-mixed, but it can be done. Try going to the websites of the FS brands and reading about it there. Understand that what you see in the range of colors is utterly dependant on your monitor and is almost certainly not what the paint looks like in RL. That's why you need to get the sample sets of colors, and then try the little pots on your own walls first. You should also know that FS paint is often a bit more expensive all by itself, not including the shipping. Perhaps if you started with a small room where you only needed a few gallons, even with the shipping and extra cost of the paint, the total additional outlay wouldn't be too big. I use FS for many rooms, but when faced with painting the whole exterior of my house I made up my own formula since I needed such a large amount. For the front door though, I bought the paint from FPE, since I only needed a couple of quarts. I live in a very rural area, too (though perhaps not so far out as you) and I find it challenging to lay in the supplies I need for my projects. Have you tried Googling for the C2 paint brand? I thought I would be far away from the nearest one, but was surprised to find it no more distant than where I'd have to go fo BM or California paint. C2 is not FS, but they have particularly nice colors with very carefully chosen pigments. It's a bit more expensive than BM, but very nice paint. But you know, well chosen paint colors from any brand can look very fine. The worst paint mistakes are not made by not failing to use FS paint. The worst comes from not taking the time to choose very carefully and make swatches and getting rushed and frustrated and just taking the first thing that comes to hand just to get the job done. Taking your time doesn't cost anything. HTH Molly