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I was just buying some halogen replacement bulbs for my kitchen recessed lighting when the salesperson talked me into buying recessed LEDs instead. The sales pitch was great about how long they last and energy efficiency. They look super cool too.....until you turn them on. Then they have a really harsh, blue light as opposed to the beautiful warm glow of my halogens. I've read that you can use photo gels somehow, but I just need to know more details about how to actually install them. Do you just sort of "fit" them into the opening? Will they get too hot? What color should I get? Anybody have any ideas?

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LED (and other) light bulbs are available in a variety of different color temperatures. Look at the packaging for the bulbs you bought. Are they labelled as "cool white" or "daylight" with a color temperature around 4000K? Just return them and get something labelled "warm white" or "soft white", with a color temperature around 2700-3000K.

While you could potentially alter the light with a gel, there are a couple of potential downsides. First, the added filter will limit air circulation around the bulb, potentially causing it to overheat and fail prematurely. Second, it won't look as good as a stock light. Since the change you're looking for is likely available by simply using a different bulb, I'd suggest you shop around instead.

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    And third, a Gel is just going to reduce the light output from the LED since it can only "subtract" light. So you'll either end up having to run them brighter than you otherwise would, or your room will be dimmer. In any case, if this is a new install the company should be willing to swap them out with LEDs of a lower color temperature since they should have shown you a sample first so you could see what it looked like - my wife hated the 3700K LED's in our kitchen, but loves the 5000K replacements so it's a very personal decision.
    – Johnny
    Commented Aug 16, 2016 at 19:21
  • It's also helpful to be aware that human perception of "comfortable" color temperature is somewhat related to the brightness of the lighting in question.
    – junkyardsparkle
    Commented Aug 16, 2016 at 23:16
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Return the bulbs and get ones of a different (lower = "warmer" = more red/yellow, less blue) color temperature.

Don't fiddle about with gels. Feel free to accost the salesperson and point out where s/he went wrong.

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