A strategy is reported to optimize lighting to reduce photochemical degradation of works of art and archival documents. The strategy revolves around improving luminous efficiency of the spectral profile to exclude light which doesn't contribute to brightness or color perception, while also trying to maintain color rendering. The work focuses on Old Master Drawings and designing filters for illuminants, but is applicable to the broad range of art and archival documents and the direct design of lighting without filters such as LED. A filter profile is identified which seems to be beneficial, or at worst neutral for all pigments measured. Underlying principles are identified: (1) The best luminous efficiencies arise from multiple band illuminants, and also improves as color rendering is sacrificed. (2) Protection of an object even late in its damage life can significantly extend its remaining life. (3) Protection of an object early in its life can possibly abate some of the light induced damage it may experience across its life, so early intervention in light protection may be advised. This report further goes on to suggest approaches to further enhance the protection, including tailoring the spectral dependence of appearance change.

Recent interest in the self‐healing ability of the laser dye 1‐amino‐2‐methylanthraquinone, Disperse Orange 11, has lead us to investigate the possible alternative mechanisms of action, either intramolecular proton transfer (PT) or twisted intramolecular charge transfer (TICT) formation. AMPAC semiempirical PM3 CI (all single excited configurations) potential energy surfaces searches have been conducted with either reaction mechanism. Based purely on the potential energy surface results, no state, S0, T1, or S1, seems especially likely to be kinetically favorable for PT. The T1 state is favorable thermodynamically for PT. However, the S1 state TICT reaction is both thermodynamically favorable and kinetically preferred over all PT reactions. There is also a favorable T1 TICT reaction, but much slower kinetically on the triplet surface than S1 TICT. The Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin (WKB) method has been used to ascertain proton tunneling contributions to PT. Even with proton tunneling, S1 TICT is still more highly favored, though proton tunneling could make the T1 PT reaction competitive depending on the rate of intersystem crossing. We also examine spectroscopic properties of PT transfer and TICT reaction path entities in comparison with published experimental evidence. However, this comparison leads to ambiguous findings that suggest that electronic spectral properties alone will not fully clarify the mechanism. Overall, results suggest that the TICT mechanism is the most likely for optical damage and self‐repair for Disperse Orange 11, and might be considered for the damage and repair mechanisms for other organic solid state laser materials. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.