60w incandescent = ~800 lumens = ~9.5-11w LED
100w incandescent = ~1600 lumens = ~19-21w LED
Harley doesn't know what he's talking about. All the different lamps emit photons, that's how they work. How they make the photons is a significant difference however, and much too involved to dig into in this forum.
Look for the lumens claim. Regardless of wattage, virtually all light bulbs of every description will tell you how many lumens the lamp generates. Match your new LED's brightness to the brightness of a light bulb that you're replacing (if it's an old incandescent, just match wattages with new ones at the store to be sure you're comparing apples to apples). Get within 10% with your new bulbs and you'll likely never know the difference.
You can also consider going brighter. If you only ever used 60w incandescent, good for about 650-700 lumens, you can consider moving up to a brighter LED and still save a lot of electricity. An 800-lumen LED can be had that only uses 11 watts, so you're avoiding over 40 watts of electricity use and still getting a little boost in brightness.
LEDs currently on the market are not quite as efficient as the best fluorescent lamps, but they're gaining ground. Fluorescents aren't going to improve beyond what they are now, but LEDs have a ways to go yet before they top out.
LEDs - and fluorescent lamps, for that matter - do not generate a perfect spectrum. There are serious gaps in the light they generate. It looks white, but that's just an average. You can do pretty well at getting a good color coverage by mixing your bulbs. Where I have a couple of multi-lamp fixtures, I'll put in one cool and one warm white together. You can see it if you look at the fixture but it isn't noticeably odd how it lights things, but it does a much better job at rendering all colors evenly. "Cool white" makes people look like zombies and "warm white" gives too much weight to reds and oranges, so everyone looks feverish. Mix them up and you have a decently balanced light. It isn't perfect but it's a damn sight better than relying on just one or the other.
I tried using "neutral" bulbs. That just made everything look greenish. Bleah.
Good luck with it.
854 lumens is a 60 watt light bulb.
you can't , all the figures are fake the cfls are all dim and just glow , the leds just glow , tungsten filament bulbs actually SHINE and project light in a different way
usually it says how many lumens the light gives off.
I don't care about energy use or anything else about them. there must be a chart somewhere but hunting through all the stupid sales sites and useless suggestions I get from Yahoo these days.... Anyone able to help an old lady out?
