Color Temperature Guide
Understand colour temperature in kelvin — warm to cool — for lighting and photography.
Warm and cool light, measured
Colour temperature describes whether light looks warm and orange or cool and blue, measured in kelvin, and it matters for choosing light bulbs, setting up photography, and getting screens to look right. This is a guide to what the kelvin figures mean, so a bulb marked 2700K or 5000K tells you the light you will actually get.
See what each colour temperature looks like and where it suits.
The counterintuitive scale
Colour temperature runs backwards from how we talk about warm and cool. Lower kelvin numbers, around 2700, give warm, cosy, orange-tinted light — the glow of an old incandescent bulb, good for living rooms and evenings. Higher numbers, around 5000 and up, give cool, bluish, daylight-like light — crisp and alerting, suited to workspaces and kitchens. So warmer light has a lower number and cooler light a higher one, which feels back to front. Matching the temperature to the room and mood is what makes lighting feel right rather than clinical or gloomy.
Questions & answers
Why does warm light have a lower kelvin number?
The scale is based on physics, where cooler-looking blue light corresponds to higher temperatures, so it runs opposite to how we describe warmth.
What temperature suits a living room versus a kitchen?
Warm light around 2700K suits cosy living spaces; cooler light around 5000K suits kitchens and workspaces where you want crispness.
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