An LED is a ‘light-emitting diode’ and in the graphics industry stands for the new ‘LED’ light, which has replaced older light sources such as neon tubes and tungsten lamps. Neon tubes are mainly known from the area of D50 or D65 standard light, while tungsten light sources were mainly used in colour measuring devices such as spectrophotometers and colourimeters. Today, LED light sources are predominantly used for both standard light and colour measurement light, as they can be better spectrally adapted and often emit a more harmonious light spectrum, especially than neon light.
In modern standardised lighting, it is possible not only to set up standardised light for one type of light, such as D50, but also to simulate D50, D65, incandescent light and much more using several spectrally different LED lines by dimming and mixing the spectra differently in one lamp. In addition, the LED luminaires can often be dimmed, which was not possible with neon tubes.
LED light sources are also used in measuring devices, where several LED units are also often used, often including one for UV light in order to be able to offer a defined proportion of UV in the light.
What the industry is still waiting for are cost-effective standardised LED retrofit solutions, but these are unlikely to be long in coming. As the big players such as JUST Normlicht and GTI have dominated the market up to now, only expensive retrofits of the entire lighting unit have been offered instead of removing the old neon tubes and replacing them with new LED tubes in the same housing. At JUST, for example, replacing a small standard lighting unit with four tubes costs several thousand euros, as a completely new unit is used here and the old one has to be disposed of. Today, specialised smaller companies such as Lacuna Solutions can also offer modern and innovative, controllable standard light luminaires for new standard lighting solutions.
Today, however, LED light sources with a colour rendering index of over 98 are also available on the market, so it seems to be only a matter of time before LED retrofit solutions for D50 and D65 standard light will also be available here for the slim replacement of old standard light tubes while retaining the reflectors.
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