Can rgb white be made to look like incandescent white?

[taybrynn]

Ok, so my neighbor and I have a two home display and I did sell him on the concept that the rgb lights could essentially make 'any' color.

He really doesn't like the rgb white and wants it to match the white of our mini light trees from the past.

I know the software doesn't make this easy right now even if I knew the exact rgb mix to use.

I also think while I could yellow it up! there would likely be other reasons why the rgb white won't match the other perfectly.

Thoughts or comments?

Scott

[crazybob]

It CAN in fact do this (at least the higher end stuff can).

We were at Disney's California Adventure a few weeks ago, and I noticed the walkway lights around their nighttime water show are RGB... however after the show, they slowly faded back to "incandescent white". I even commented to my wife how good it looked.

I suppose the hard part is finding out the exact values to punch in to get this...

[deplanche]

The easy answer is to turn down the Blue a bit to "warm" up the white, and it will start looking more like the old lights.  The hard part is getting the exact color... it will depends on the LEDs you are using.

[zwiller]

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login  Where I went to fool with this. 

I like both incans and rgb but not together.  My experiments with adjusting were not favorable but YMMV.  Also, when I see people say they can do any color with rgb, they can't: brown.  There are considerations for using rgb, not all colors look great IMO.  That said, I am 100% rgb and love it. 

[mms]

My topper (RGB strips) and mega tree white (incan "warm" white) do not match.  I haven't played with it enough to try to actually "match" it, but you could try taking some of the blue out.  Warm white looks "yellow" to me, so that's where I would start. 

I like both incans and rgb but not together.  My experiments with adjusting were not favorable but YMMV.  Also, when I see people say they can do any color with rgb, they can't: brown.  There are considerations for using rgb, not all colors look great IMO.  That said, I am 100% rgb and love it. 

Any earth tone... maroon, olive green, brown, etc., are impossible to replicate.  Granted, the only time I would want earthier tones is for Halloween.  Real dark, rich shades of blue and purple are hard to come by as well, but I can usually find something usable by using Rowan's color finder.

[taybrynn]

Great comments and links so far!   I think another aspect of this is buying different types of RGB lights ... I would guess that some may require different RGB mixes to obtain the same color.  This just feels like an extremely slipperly slope to me.  Can I make a cat look like a small dog?  Well, sorta.  Should I? 

Is there any way in LOR and/or Nutcracker to do a mass change of RGB colors for all objects?  I'm thinking no easy way, esp. since I have to change on the LOR side AND the Nutcracker side.

[tbone321]

Any earth tone... maroon, olive green, brown, etc., are impossible to replicate.  Granted, the only time I would want earthier tones is for Halloween.  Real dark, rich shades of blue and purple are hard to come by as well, but I can usually find something usable by using Rowan's color finder.

That is because brown and other earth tones require black and our RGB nodes are not capable of doing that.

[taybrynn]

I'm going to try a custom color in nutcracker for warm white (like 255, 244, 229) and see how that looks.

[tjbrickner]

Don't have any links to support this thought, but would it be possible to find the "bulb caps" (honestly don't know what they are called, but it makes them look like a c9 bulb) in a yellowish color?  That should help simulate the incans.  That would throw your other colors off, but perhaps those would look more incandescent?

[tbone321]

That doesn't work with LED's

[taybrynn]

I"m just looking for something I can do with software (if possible).  I know the software doesn't exactly make this easy currently ... like I can define a custom
color in xlights ... so I may try that on something like white christmas where I only have white lights to begin with.

[tbone321]

The problem will be in dimming them.  If you hold the lights at a given intensity, you may be able to come close to matching the icans to the LED's.  The problem will be is if you change the intensity of the lights.  Where the frequency of the light changes when you dim Icans, it does not with LED's.  Icans will get more yellow as they dim and RGB nodes can do just about anything.  While the output frequency of the three LED's doesn't change, the amount of light being put out does and the curves of the three diodes is not exactly the same which changes the mix thru the dimming curve.  If you have a white LED, you will see that it stays just as white as it dims, just less intensity.

[taybrynn]

Great comments --- I know at the end of the day what the answer is -- but I'm trying to understand the WHYS so I can explain this to my neighbor why the mix of RGB and incan is the
way it is.

[jnealand]

You can play with Rick's color finder program which I believe is in the wiki.

[tbone321]

The simple answer is that LED's emit a specific frequency or color regardless of the intensity and ican emit a broad spectrum of light that changes with intensity.  To get colored light with icans, the paint or coloring act as a filter blocking almost all but the desired color while with LED's, the light coming out of it IS the color the LED is designed to emit and that is the only color it puts out. This is why the suggestion to use a colored will not work with an LED.  The colored cap acts like a filter blocking most of the light except for its color which works well with icans that are putting out a wide spectrum of light including the color of the fixture.  The leakage of other colors along with the desired one gives colored icans that softer look.  Since LED's only put out one specific color, there is nothing extra to filter and all that happens if the filter is a different color is the intensity of the light output drops but the color does not change.  This is also why color LED's have that intense cartoonish look although they have made headway in calming that down.