Illumination of an environment can be selected based on target colors that the illumination would provide for specific samples. One process for synthesizing the illumination includes repeatedly selecting settings for separate light sources in a luminaire system and determining a difference between the target colors of the samples and apparent colors of the samples under illumination that the luminaire system would produce with the settings selected. The differences thus determined can be used to identify a synthesized illumination, for example, the synthesized illumination that provides a smallest difference. A luminaire system can implement such a process in a luminaire or in a control system for luminaires.