When looking at the different types of lighting and trying to decide what type of light you should consider for a certain space consider the functions and mechanics of the eye.
Thinking of how your eyes work and choosing a color and lighting scheme that best suits them will make for a more comfortable experience.
Our eyes have a certain range that they are able to detect light within.
That range is normally 180 degrees horizontally and 130 degrees vertically.
The eye is able to perceive the sharpest details within the first two degrees in both the horizontal plane and vertical plane.
Another way to put it is if you took a one gallon paint can and cut the bottom out of it and then looked through it that would be the area of your sharpest vision.
The further away you get from this area the more distorted your vision gets.
The eye has many functioning parts that work together to help you see and perceive objects.
It has different receptors for fine detail and gross color.
The finest details are seen at a small area at the back of the eye that is called the fovea.
As light is detected farther away from the fovea details become progressively less and less clear.
Despite this even on the periphery of your visual field movement and changes in brightness remain discernible.
The eye does two things in order to focus on an object.
First it finds the distance of the object and then it adjusts the pupil to let in the appropriate amount of reflected light from the object.
The process by which the eye locates and then focuses on an object is called accommodation.
When the eye is focusing on an object that is near the lens of the eye becomes more convex or rounded.
The farther away the object is the more flat and thinner the lens of the eye will be.
The inability for the eye to change shape according to the distance of the object being focused on is corrected by prescription glasses.
The prescription makes up for its inability to become thinner for objects far away or its inability to become rounded for objects that are near.
This is where you get the terms nearsighted and farsighted.
Along with the lens flattening or becoming rounded the pupil of the eye opens wide in low light conditions and constricts smaller as the light increases in brightness.
This process is called adaptation.
As the light gets brighter there is a change that occurs in the photochemical substances of the retina.
This chemical change is why it takes your eyes longer to adapt when going from an area of light to an area of darkness, than it does going from an area of darkness to an area of light.
The eye has an average visual light detection range that extends from moonlight which is.
01 foot-candles to summer sunlight which is 10,000 foot-candles.
The average interior is lit at approximately 5 to 100 foot-candles depending on the use of the space.
Taking into consideration the mechanics of the eye when lighting your room will help to make the space a more enjoyable place to be.
Remember your eyes are working hard, and the older you get the harder they are going to work in order to do the same job they are doing now.
Pick lighting that won' t produce a lot of glare and that will help your eyes more easily focus on objects and perform necessary tasks.
An area where your eyes are working hard to focus is not a very comfortable place to be in for long.
Make the space relaxing by allowing your mind to relax and not work as hard.