Bicycle, the thing about can lights, beyond the brightness, is their placement. If placed poorly they will cast your shadow over your work space. There are many, many lighting threads that deal with cans. You might start with this one.

We have replaced every last 6" can light in our 1994 house with either a pendant or this type of retrofit fixture. I hope never to see another exposed-bulb can light again!

Thank you eam. I'll read thru all of that, & more, I'm sure. I've heard about the shadowing over the work space & want to make sure that doesn't happen. Glancing thru that article, I believe it gives you a certain measurement from the wall to make sure that doesn't happen. There are 2 great light stores near me that the designers use. I need to stop by & pick their brains on this, as well. I'm a visual person, so maybe they can show me how it works to make sure they're placed in the correct spots. I appreciate your help.

abby, there must be a difference in "can" & the new recessed lighting??? I pulled up your link to Home Depot & that's what I'm calling a can light. I obviously have a lot to read up on! Thanks for your help.

Most people, including me, prefer warmer, softer, color temperatures in the ~2700K-3000K range, but some people prefer brighter light, sometimes called "daylight", in the 4500K+ range. Whatever you choose, try to be consistent - mismatched color temperatures is distracting and annoying. And shoot for Color Rendering Index (CRI) >85 regardless of the color temp you go with.

Cans are general lighting, not task lighting; if you have upper cabinets they can't be placed close enough to the center of the c-top, so you will be standing in your own shadow. The are great for task lights over sinks, because they can be placed far enough back. Used in pairs, the shadows are self-cancelling.

Undercab is better task lighting, and some bright lights built into the vent hood (mine has 4 @ 20w. mini halogens)

Casey

Thank you all for your information. I can see I have quite a bit to learn!

gaucho, where does one see this CRI? I'm very confused about the #'s you talk about. I obviously need to do quite a bit of reading to catch myself up on how to make this work!

Casey, I really thought the cans were for task! Good to know that's not the case! I'm doing open shelving for uppers on 1 wall & no uppers on the other walls. So, no place to install under cab lighting. That was hard for me to let go of. Because of that, it's imperative that I make sure to get my lighting correct! More than likely I'll be doing a pendant over my sink. I have a hood w/ lighting over my range, but not sure how much that will help. I guess I better figure this out, sooner than later!

Thanks again for your help!

Color temperature is the hue of the light in the red-blue spectrum, and it's measured in K, for Kelvin, which is an absolute temperature in thermodynamics. Redish lights like incandescents are around 2700 Kelvin, and bluish lights like daylight or cool white fluorescents are 5000-6000 Kelvin. For domestic lighting, most folks prefer 2700-3500 for most stuff, but some folks do prefer the bluer stuff.

I think color temperature is confusing partly because we expect that red would be hotter than blue. The cool white fluorescents are a great example of the mixed messages - we call them cool but they have a higher temperature rating, very confusing. Anyhow, fact is that the hotter things get, the bluer the light they emit. For example, we know that blue flames are hotter than red flames.

Color Rendering Index, or CRI, "is a quantitative measure of the ability of a light source to reveal the colors of various objects faithfully in comparison with an ideal or natural light source." Inandescents are considered ideal light sources because they provide a nice continuous spectrum of light.

Every light you look at will provide these two numbers, color temperture and CRI. For example, the link that abbycat provided is 3000K and 80 CRI, and this one from Commercial Electric is 2700K and 90 CRI. So to the extent you can trust the numbers, the Commercial Electic light is redder and renders colors better than abby's.

Regarding cans for task lighting, I think cans centered 26-28" from the wall work great for task lighting. We have undercab lights that we love and use often, but mostly as accent &/or night lights, not task lights. They really aren't needed at all for cooking & cleaning. And I remain convinced that the dedicated light circuit for the sink is a nutty anachronism - why not just illuminate the sink with the rest of the place?

gaucho, thank you so very much for this great explanation! You have just given me a great deal more information that I can work with, & you explained it where I can understand it! That was so nice of you to do this. I love this site!

So, one question on the CRI...in your example you say the higher # gives you better colors...do you mean it's clearer/crisper & perhaps better lighting than a lesser CRI#? I think I'm going to go over to the lighting store near me on Saturday & see
if they can show me the difference in the lighting w/ all of this new found information! They have a room specifically for showing the differences in lighting. I think I might understand it better w/ the information you've armed me with!

Thank you for your take on the cans for task lighting, as well, & how to center them. I was sure I had been told they're great for task lighting. I guess I'll be going in that direction, as planned. As for the dedicated light circuit....I sooo cannot speak on that. One thing at a time for me, gaucho!

Thank you again for your time & help. Greatly appreciated!

Happy to help bikegirl.

To understand CRI, you kinda need to understand why things look one color or another. Blue things look blue, ironically, because they absorb all visible wavelengths except blue, and reflect blue. Likewise, red things reflect red and absorb all else, black things absorb all wavelengths, and white things reflect all visible wavelegths. So then, you can only tell the difference between red and blue objects if the light you're using to illuminate them contains both red and blue wavelengths. If, for example, your illumination source emits only a single wavelenth, like the low pressure sodium lights you see in some parking lots, then blue and red objects will appear to be different shades of the same color (yellow for low pressure sodium). This type of illumination essentially creates a black & white image, no color rendering whatsoever, which is the worst case for CRI. So CRI is really about the distribution of wavelengths emitted by the light source. Broad, continuous wavelength distributions provide good color rendering and narrow or discrete wavelength distributions provide poor color rendering.

I am going to be looking at lighting with a whole different frame of mind now! I'm printing this out & taking it w/ me to the lighting store & ask them to show me all of this! What a great learning tool! I'm a visual person, so I can't wait to see it! Thanks again!