Picture Lights

Add the finishing touch to your home with Universal Lighting’s stunning range of picture lights. We have a variety of styles and sizes to suit every environment including modern, traditional and slimline designs, in a variety of colours and finishes including black, chrome and brass. Think of them as accent lighting, able to create an atmosphere and ambience of their own.

Use them to highlight any picture or wall hanging, which creates a focal point in the room and adds background mood lighting at the same time. A picture light is not just for pictures or artwork. They can be used to highlight any special object or focal point in a room and add interest to any gloomy corner.

Why Picture Lights

A picture light is designed to perform a specific task and its sole purpose is to enhance the look of your wall hung artwork. It enhances the vibrant details within the painting, print or photograph, draws attention to it and is aesthetically pleasing to the eye.

Picture lights are functional and elegant, whether they be traditionally styled or sleek and modern LED versions. They can add an element of sophistication to any room whilst enhancing the detail and colours of your artwork. Whether it’s your child’s school picture, a family photo or original oil painting, there’s a picture light to enhance its looks.

Considerations

What type of art are you displaying?

• Use soft warm white LED light bulbs up to 3000k for oil paintings. They won’t fade your painting as they give off very little heat, no ultraviolet or infrared light to attack the surface
• Use warm white LED bulbs up to 3500k for prints and photographs, which need a slightly brighter focused light.

Style and Finish

• It may sound obvious, but it should be in keeping with the rest of your room. Have a look at the finish of your existing door knobs, light fittings and switch plates when deciding the finish.
• Always choose a picture light with an adjustable head, as this makes fine-tuning easy. Fit a wall dimmer switch whenever possible so you can change the light levels to suit the ambience. If you want an LED picture light, always choose a warm white colour temperature and ensure that it is dimmable.

Placement

• Pictures and other artwork should be positioned with the centre of the piece at eye level. In most cases, that would be about 5ft or 1.524m above floor level. The picture light should be positioned centrally around 6” or 150mm above to give the best illumination.

What Size Picture Light do I Need?

When deciding on the size of your picture light, there are a number of things you need to consider. The size of the artwork, level of illumination and its proportion relative to the picture frame. The size of the actual artwork is not considered here, it’s the size of the frame that’s important. Typically, a picture light should be between 40% and 70% of the frame’s width.

• For a frame of up to 24 inches (600mm) 240 – 420mm picture light.
• For a frame of up to 30 inches (760mm) 300 – 530mm picture light.

• For a frame of up to 45 inches (1140mm) 450 – 800mm picture light.

These are not hard and fast rules and a little smaller or larger won’t make a big difference but may balance better with your existing decor or personal preference.

We don’t profess to be art experts or art critics, but we do know about lighting. These are general guidelines to help you in your choice of picture light and how you can get the best from it. If your artwork is valuable or a specialised piece, we would always recommend getting specialist advice.

If you require help, further information or advice on selecting your perfect picture light, please contact one of our lighting specialists on 0151 650 2138 for expert advice.