What are Picture Lights?
Picture lights are low-profile lamps that are attached either to the wall or the frame to extend out over paintings and provide balanced illumination onto pieces of art or pictures. Picture lights add remarkable detail to your artwork. They come in many different styles, sizes, colors, and connection types to fit your needs.
Where to Use Picture Lights?
Picture lights can be used in any location to add vibrancy to a painting, but they work best in darker areas of a room or hallway. Choosing the appropriate-sized lights for your artwork is important to ensure that excess light is limited and doesn't bleed around the frame. Placing properly sized lights on frames with intricate details and contrasting images in dimly lit areas will draw attention to the artwork and make the colors pop.
How to Find the Best Picture Lights?
When choosing picture lights, consider the following:
- What you are illuminating
- The size of light needed
- The type of bulb required
- How the lights will be installed
We recommend removing any glass from a frame when possible, as the lights can create bright reflections or glare.
Before purchasing picture lights, ensure you know what size would work best for your painting. You want to keep the focus on the artwork and avoid lighting the wall around the frame. Most manufacturers provide a sizing guide or calculator to recommend the ideal size for your frame. Picture lights have an illumination that widens the further they get from the fixture, so a general rule of thumb is to keep about one foot of distance on either side of the light to the edge of the artwork to compensate for the extra light.
Another important factor when selecting picture lights is the light source. Many picture lights use CFL or incandescent bulbs, which not only require frequent bulb replacements but also generate a lot of heat. Heat can damage paintings, pictures, and artworks by causing paper, canvas, paint, or ink to dry out, crack, or fade over time. We recommend choosing picture lights with LEDs, as they produce less heat, emit no UV rays, and extend the longevity of your paintings. LEDs also offer other benefits, such as much lower running costs (about ¼ of the cost of incandescent bulbs) and a long lifespan of about 50,000 hours (roughly 20 years with average use), meaning you won't need to replace bulbs often.
The next consideration for your picture lights is the power source. The most common options are:
- A recessed outlet placed behind the canvas for easy plug-in
- Hard-wired picture lights, which connect directly to the electrical system inside the wall and allow you to turn them on and off with a wall switch (some models may also offer dimming control)
- Battery-powered picture lights, which are convenient as they don't require a nearby power source, but the batteries will need to be replaced or recharged regularly. It's best to place these lights somewhere easily accessible.
Benefits of Art Lighting
Many paintings are valuable, so adding light to them helps showcase the full range of colors and the precision of each brushstroke. We do not recommend using picture lights on frames with glass glazing, as it can cause reflections and glare. However, when used to illuminate oil paintings or vibrant artworks, picture lights can truly bring them to life. We suggest selecting lights with a color temperature between 2000 - 3000K to prevent the colors from washing out, reduce eye strain, and avoid excessive light spilling around the artwork. The primary purpose of picture lights is to highlight the art itself without lighting up the entire wall, so it's crucial to choose lights that are appropriately sized and not too bright. Picture lights are a great way to highlight large paintings, photographs, and other pieces of art and are commonly found in homes, businesses, galleries, hotels, casinos, and more.
