**Color Temperatures** [Romain Guy](http://curious-creature.com) Real-world artificial lights are often defined by their color temperature, measured in Kelvin (K). The color temperature of a light source is the temperature of an ideal black-body radiator that radiates light of comparable hue to that of the light source. For convenience, the tools should allow the artist to specify the hue of a light source as a color temperature (a meaningful range is 1,000 K to 12,500 K). To compute RGB values from a temperature, we can use the Planckian locus, shown in figure [planckianLocus]. This locus is the path that the color of an incandescent black body takes in a chromaticity space as the body's temperature changes. ![Figure [planckianLocus]: The Planckian locus visualized on a CIE 1931 chromaticity diagram (source: Wikipedia)](images/diagram_planckian_locus.png) An easy way to compute RGB values from this locus is to use the formula described in [#Krystek85]. Krystek's algorithm (equation $\ref{krystek}$) works in the CIE 1960 (UCS) space, using the following formula where $T$ is the desired temperature, and $u$ and $v$ the coordinates in UCS. $$$$\label{krystek} u(T) = \frac{0.860117757 + 1.54118254 \times 10^{-4}T + 1.28641212 \times 10^{-7}T^2}{1 + 8.42420235 \times 10^{-4}T + 7.08145163 \times 10^{-7}T^2} \\ v(T) = \frac{0.317398726 + 4.22806245 \times 10^{-5}T + 4.20481691 \times 10^{-8}T^2}{1 - 2.89741816 \times 10^{-5}T + 1.61456053 \times 10^{-7}T^2}$$$$ This approximation is accurate to roughly $9 \times 10^{-5}$ in the range 1,000K to 15,000K. From the CIE 1960 space we can compute the coordinates in xyY space (CIES 1931), using the formula from equation $\ref{cieToxyY}$. $$$$\label{cieToxyY} x = \frac{3u}{2u - 8v + 4} \\ y = \frac{2v}{2u - 8v + 4}$$$$ The formulas above are valid for black body color temperatures, and therefore correlated color temperatures of standard illuminants. If we wish to compute the precise chromaticity coordinates of standard CIE illuminants in the D series we can use equation $\ref{seriesDtoxyY}$. $$$$\label{seriesDtoxyY} x = \begin{cases} 0.244063 + 0.09911 \frac{10^3}{T} + 2.9678 \frac{10^6}{T^2} - 4.6070 \frac{10^9}{T^3} & 4,000K \le T \le 7,000K \\ 0.237040 + 0.24748 \frac{10^3}{T} + 1.9018 \frac{10^6}{T^2} - 2.0064 \frac{10^9}{T^3} & 7,000K \le T \le 25,000K \end{cases} \\ y = -3x^2 + 2.87 x - 0.275$$$$ From the xyY space, we can then convert to the CIE XYZ space (equation $\ref{xyYtoXYZ}$). $$$$\label{xyYtoXYZ} X = \frac{xY}{y} \\ Z = \frac{(1 - x - y)Y}{y}$$$$ For our needs, we will fix $Y = 1$. We then convert to linear RGB with a simple 3x3 matrix, as shown in equation $\ref{XYZtoRGB}$. $$$$\label{XYZtoRGB} \left[ \begin{matrix} R \\ G \\ B \end{matrix} \right] = M^{-1} \left[ \begin{matrix} X \\ Y \\ Z \end{matrix} \right]$$$$ The transformation matrix M is calculated from the target RGB color space primaries. Equation $\ref{XYZtoRGBValues}$ shows the conversion using the inverse matrix for the sRGB color space. $$$$\label{XYZtoRGBValues} \left[ \begin{matrix} R \\ G \\ B \end{matrix} \right] = \left[ \begin{matrix} 3.2404542 & -1.5371385 & -0.4985314 \\ -0.9692660 & 1.8760108 & 0.0415560 \\ 0.0556434 & -0.2040259 & 1.0572252 \end{matrix} \right] \left[ \begin{matrix} X \\ Y \\ Z \end{matrix} \right]$$$$ The result of these operations is a linear RGB triplet in the sRGB color space. Since we care about the chromaticity of the results, we must apply a normalization step to avoid clamping values greater than 1.0 and distort resulting colors: $$$$\label{normalizedRGB} \hat{C}_{linear} = \frac{C_{linear}}{max(C_{linear})}$$$$ We must finally apply the sRGB opto-electronic conversion function (OECF, shown in equation $\ref{OECFsRGB}$) to obtain a displayable value (the value should remain linear if passed to the renderer for shading). $$$$\label{OECFsRGB} C_{sRGB} = \begin{cases} 12.92 \times \hat{C}_{linear} & \hat{C}_{linear} \le 0.0031308 \\ 1.055 \times \hat{C}_{linear}^{\frac{1}{2.4}} - 0.055 & \hat{C}_{linear} \gt 0.0031308 \end{cases}$$$$ For convenience, figure [colorTemperatureScaleCCT] shows the range of correlated color temperatures from 1,000K to 12,500K. All the colors used below assume CIE $D_{65}$ as the white point (as is the case in the sRGB color space). ![Figure [colorTemperatureScaleCCT]: Scale of correlated color temperatures](images/diagram_color_temperature_cct.png) Similarly, figure [colorTemperatureScaleCIE] shows the range of CIE standard illuminants series D from 1,000K to 12,500K. ![Figure [colorTemperatureScaleCIE]: Scale of CIE standard illuminants series D](images/diagram_color_temperature_cie.png) For reference, figure [colorTemperatureScaleCCTClamped] shows the range of correlated color temperatures without the normalization step presented in equation $\ref{normalizedRGB}$. ![Figure [colorTemperatureScaleCCTClamped]: Unnormalized scale of correlated color temperatures](images/diagram_color_temperature_cct_clamped.png) Table [colorTemperatureSamples] presents the correlated color temperature of various common light sources as sRGB color swatches. These colors are relative to the $D_{65}$ white point, so their perceived hue might vary based on your display's white point. See [What colour is the Sun?](http://casa.colorado.edu/~ajsh/colour/Tspectrum.html) for more information. Temperature (K) | Light source | Color --------------------:|:-----------------------------|------------------------------------------------------- 1,700-1,800 | Match flame |

1,850-1,930 | Candle flame |

2,000-3,000 | Sun at sunrise/sunset |

2,500-2,900 | Household tungsten lightbulb |

3,000 | Tungsten lamp 1K |

3,200-3,500 | Quartz lights |

3,200-3,700 | Fluorescent lights |

3,275 | Tungsten lamp 2K |

3,380 | Tungsten lamp 5K, 10K |

5,000-5,400 | Sun at noon |

5,500-6,500 | Daylight (sun + sky) |

5,500-6,500 | Sun through clouds/haze |

6,000-7,500 | Overcast sky |

6,500 | RGB monitor white point |

7,000-8,000 | Shaded areas outdoors |

8,000-10,000 | Partly cloudy sky |

[Table [colorTemperatureSamples]: Normalized correlated color temperatures for common light sources] # References [#Krystek85]: M. Krystek. 1985. An algorithm to calculate correlated color temperature. *Color Research & Application*, 10 (1), 38–40.