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Simulating Real-world Film Lighting Techniques in 3D

Updated September 9, 2011

 

By Lucy Burton

Source: https://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/simulating-real-world-film-lighting-techniques-in-3d


With all the advances in modeling and animation, an often overlooked but absolutely critical area of 3D scene creation is the proper use of lighting and rendering techniques. Good lighting and rendering can make even a simple 3D model look extraordinary, and poor lighting can make even the best model look bland.

This series of tutorials cover not just the mechanics of lighting within the Autodesk* Softimage*|XSI* software package but also how to incorporate the language of light used in fine art, theater, and film into your 3D scenes to create truly cinematic views that are compelling for your audience. I'll explore the basics of real-world lighting scenarios and how to implement them in 3D, and because rendering is inseparable from lighting, I'll also discuss various rendering techniques such as Global Illumination, Final Gather (FG), Ambient Occlusion, and of course, high dynamic range imagery (HDRI) lighting.

Light and Shadow


In music, the silence between notes is as important as the notes themselves for creating emotion within a composition. Similarly, in lighting, shadows-their placement, direction, intensity, softness, and so on-are just as important as light in creating meaning and mood within a scene, as Figure 1 shows.

real-world-figure-1.jpg


Figure 1.This still life demonstrates the importance of not just light but shading to a scene. Notice that although the image on the left is well lit with Global Illumination and FG rendering, it is still relatively flat. But with the addition of the directional shadows in the right image, cast courtesy of the Physical Sky shader in Autodesk* Softimage*|XSI*, light passes through a window, a curtain, and shadows from the leaves outside, and the scene gains additional visual interest and realism.

More often than not, beginners take one of two approaches: either flooding the scene with flat light as if merely seeing the objects is enough for the viewer (or worse, simply bumping up the ambience to fill in poorly lit areas) or not lighting it enough in order to hide shortcomings in modeling.

When used properly, however, both light and shadow can actually enhance a model or animated character, providing an additional layer of drama or suspense to the scene. Obtaining an understanding of these basics is critical to realizing your vision.

Three-point Lighting


Three-point lighting is derived from a technique originally developed for theater by Stanley McCandless, who is widely considered the premiere developer of lighting design in the United States. The variation used in film, television, and commercial product promotion uses three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light, each with a specific purpose.

The key light (Figure 2a) is the main directional light on the object or character and is typically the brightest light source in the scene. The fill light (Figure 2b) is used to simulate the light bounced from objects and sources on the opposite side of the frame from the key light. Finally, the back light (Figure 2c) is used mainly to separate the character or object from the background by providing a slight halo effect off the back edges of the character, such as a hint of light at the rim of their shoulder or off the edge of its hair. Back light is not the same as background lighting, however. Three-point lighting is about illuminating the main subject, whether that's a character or the model of a product a company hopes to sell. Therefore, back lighting points toward that subject, not the objects behind that subject.
 

real-world-figure-2.jpg


Figure 2.These images show a standard three-point lighting set-up. Note how the rays are cast to light the figure and to differentiate the subject from its background; (a) key light; (b) fill light, and (c) back light.

Autodesk* Softimage*|XSI* provides another handy tool for positioning your lights. By clicking the drop-down arrow of any 3D viewport, you can select Spot Lights, then choose any of the listed spot lights within your scene. The view will change to the perspective of the light itself (Figure 3) as if you were looking through it, directly at the object it is lighting. From here, you can see precisely how much of the object is receiving light and where the umbra begins. You can also interactively adjust the spotlight by pressing the B hotkey to display the light's manipulators, and then pressing the Tab key to reveal the manipulators for the cone and spread angle of the light. The white exterior cone controls the Cone Angle value; the inner yellow cone determines the Cone Spread value. Simply click and drag the cone you with to adjust, or Shift-click and drag the edge of the cone to manipulate both cones simultaneously.
 

real-world-figure-3.jpg

Figure 3.Autodesk* Softimage*|XSI*'s Spot view

Key-to-Fill Ratios


The main thing that key-to-fill ratios (Figure 4) determine within a scene is how "contrasty" your final image will be. Low key-to-fill ratios are excellent for creating desaturated looks, such as those of a cloudy day where the sky is overcast and muting any harsh directional light from the sun, or in places where there is a lot of bounce light from the surrounding environment, such as a hospital room or the white tile of a kitchen. Low key-to-fill ratios are also used for any atmosphere in which you want to create the impression of happiness, such as in a child's room. In this sort of lighting scheme, there is a great deal of fill light, nearly matching that of the key light.

heads-1.jpg


Figure 4.This series of images demonstrates a range of lighting possibilities. The first image (a) presents a standard lighting scheme; (b) shows a low key-to-fill ratio, and (c) a more dramatic high key-to-fill-ratio. The last image (d) demonstrates how a change of angle can alter the emotional character of the subject, making him look quite ominous, and even change the structure of the face.

Examples of high key-to-fill ratios include scenes with deep shadows and bright highlights, such as the stark lighting of film noir classics like Touch of Evil, scary films like Les Diaboliques, or in the paintings of Rembrandt. In this kind of lighting, the key light is often set at a very high angle, producing sharp shadows and a triangle of light below the eye of a character on the opposite side of the face from the key light position. It is highly directional, and there is virtually no fill light on that side.

Color Temperature


Color can modify form and is a powerful visual and emotional stimulus within a design that can cause objects or characters to appear to change dimension, reverse directions, and alter the interval between forms. It can even seem to generate motion within a scene independent of object animation. The colors you choose within your lighting establish overall mood and reinforce the theme of the overall work.

Color temperature (measured in degrees Kelvin [K]) varies depending on the light source in question. All objects emit light when sufficiently heated. The degree of brightness is a function of temperature. Through a device called a spectrophotometer, any color can be equated with the amount of temperature being applied to a blackbody, which results in a Kelvin measurement (Figure 5). Candlelight is very warm in color and varies between 1850° and 1950° K, whereas a typical household incandescent light is about 3000° K, producing a color ranging between orange and yellow. Fluorescent lights give off cooler color tones ranging from green to blue and are between 3200° K and 7000° K. Daylight ranges between 5500° and 7500° K.

real-world-figure-5.jpg

Figure 5.Color temperature chart in degrees Kelvin


Your color choices in lighting are also important when trying to composite 3D objects or characters with live-action backgrounds. In addition, films are registered to certain color temperatures: Daylight-balanced film is 5500° K, and tungsten-balanced film is 3200° K. Even today's digital cameras use filters to achieve the same sort of effects, and on-set lights use specific gels to tint light sources. So, if you're working with photographers or cinematographers, you're going to need to get the shooting data from them if you're going to mesh your scene well with their work. Additionally, postproduction color timing used by film processors can change the scenic color balance.

Adjusting Gamma Correction and Contrast


Gamma measures the degree of brightness and contrast within the midrange luminance values of an image (Figure 6), either in a photograph or via a video or computer device. When video is encoded and decoded, variations in the contrast values of the image occur. In a typical cathode ray television, the gamma value is 2.2 darker than the original 1.0 gamma value of the video compression that a camera records. Additionally, there are differences between Windows and Mac systems, with Windows gamma encoding being 0.45 and the gamma decoding being 2.2. Mac OS X and later versions encode gamma values at 0.55 and decode gamma at 1.8. A Nintendo Game Boy displays images with a gamma value ranging between 3.0 and 4.0.

real-world-figure-6.jpg


Figure 6.This series of images of a blue frog demonstrates how gamma affects an image. The second image from the left should be ideal for most devices.

What all this means in practical terms for the 3D artist is that you will need to adjust the output gamma values of your project depending upon what sort of display your project is likely to be viewed on.

Within Autodesk* Softimage*|XSI*, you can adjust the gamma values for a render pass by opening the Render Manager in the Render toolbar, and then clicking Pass > Edit > Edit Current Pass or Render > Render > Pass Options. Within the Pass Gamma Correction option, you can select Apply Display Gamma Correction.

You can also edit the gamma of an image clip used as a material, light, or environment texture simply by selecting the geometry or light in question, clicking Modify > Texture, and selecting the relevant image clip from the submenu listings or by double-clicking the image clip you want to alter from within Autodesk* Softimage*|XSI*'s RenderTree.

From there, you can alter the HDRI or OpenEXR Display Gamma settings for your particular display as well as alter the Color Profile Gamma as an sRGB preset or with your own user-defined gamma settings. OpenEXR images and HDRIs have linear color profiles; Cineon and DPX images are logarithmic and, therefore, are automatically converted to a linear profile. Any 8-bit image is regarded as sRGB. Notice that within this window, you can also control F-stop; exposure; and color correct for hue, saturation, gain, and brightness with value sliders. Additionally, you can animate all parameters by setting keys via the green animation curve marker to the left of each option.

Alternately, you can correct gamma values globally during the compositing phase via a Color Adjust Operator with Autodesk* Softimage*|XSI*'s custom compositing application, the FXTree. This integrated system is based on the Avid Media Illusion toolset and has become increasingly powerful as versions have progressed.

Inverse Square Law: Light Intensity Attenuation/Falloff


The Inverse Square Law of light states that as light waves radiate outward from their source, the intensity of that light decreases in inverse proportion to the square of the distance from the source. In other words, an object twice as far away from a light receives only one-quarter the intensity of that light as exists at its origin.

Light attenuation, or disambiguation/falloff, describes the gradual diminishing intensity as light moves through any medium-be it air, water, glass, or a subsurface scattering such as that found in porous surfaces like marble or skin. Such light scattering can be simulated in 3D using lights and material shaders.

Some light shaders use a linear falloff value. However, linear falloff tends to look less realistic, and visible noise results if you input the wrong value, because doing so actually makes the computer violate a natural law-namely, conservation of energy-and ends up producing hot spots of intense light in random places within the scene.

It is far better to use Light Exponent Falloff mode, manipulate the inverse square falloff of the light source, and fine-tune the exponent values from there, as the examples in Figure 7 show.

real-world-figure-7.jpg


Figure 7.In these two images, the physical distance between the light and the object has not changed: Only the light exponent start/end falloff values have been altered. Therefore, the light's brightness in the first image diminishes before it can cast a full oval of light onto the table. Additionally, note that in the top image, the shadow cast by the pottery is much sharper, because in that image, the shadow was generated via ray tracing, whereas in the bottom image, the soft shadow is achieved by creating a shadow map.

Depth of Field


The human eye, unlike a computer, cannot focus all objects to infinity. So to add more realism to a scene, adding depth of field is an important option. Depth of field settings simulate a plane of maximum sharpness and corresponding areas surrounding that plane that are also in focus (commonly referred to as the circle of confusion) while increasingly blurring objects beyond this area.

By varying the combination of aperture size/F-stop and shutter speed, cinematographers control the depth of field in an image. A high F-stop/small aperture combined with a slow shutter speed yield a wide area of prime focus, or a large circle of confusion. A low F-stop/wide aperture diameter combined with a fast shutter speed yields a narrow area of prime focus, or a small circle of confusion.

A depth of field effect can be simulated in 3D with a lens shader applied to the camera (Figure 8). The settings work the same way as they do on a real camera when the aperture dilates to let in varying levels of light. This cityscape demonstrates how to achieve a common film technique known as a rack focus, where the area of prime sharpness moves from the foreground to the background or vice versa. You might use this method to keep a person in focus while walking through the cityscape towards the camera in order to keep the audience's attention on that character.

real-world-figure-8.jpg


Figure 8.In the top image, a lens with a focal length of 80 mm is used at f32, with a narrow circle of confusion (0.1) and a focal distance of 70. In the bottom image, the lens is still an 80 mm, but the F-stop setting has been changed to f2. In both cases, the depth of field strength is set at 0.07. To animate this effect, you would simply set keys on the focal distance and F-stop in frame 1 using the first values, and then advance the timeline to frame 60 and set another key with the second set of values, thereby creating a 2-second rack focus effect at 30 frames per second.

However, effects executed using 3D shaders within scenes such as in Figure 8 can be extremely render intensive. A time-saving alternative is to use an output shader such as the Mental Ray 2D Depth of Field shader applied at the pass level, which uses z-depth information obtained during rendering to generate a global blurring effect in a postprocessing calculation within your composite (Figure 9).
 

real-world-figure-9.jpg

 

Figure 9.Postprocessing a depth of field effect through FXTree nodes.


Once a separate depth pass has been rendered, an image is created that contains information regarding the relative z-depths of all the objects in your scene. With that, you can go into the FXTree and plug in the relative nodes to achieve the desired effect. The nice thing about this method within Autodesk* Softimage*|XSI* is that by simply passing your mouse over the composited image in the FX Viewer, the application will return a precise distance value to any object you point at, so that you can enter the corresponding focus values into the depth of field parameters.

In terms of render time, the image in Figure 10 rendered basically in real time, virtually instantly, despite being a much more complex scene, with more geometry along with complex textures and displacement effects. So, this is something to consider when planning your production workflow.

real-world-figure-10.jpg

Figure 10.Final render of a composited depth of field effect.


 

Summary


Successfully working with complex 3D software packages like Autodesk* Softimage*|XSI* is largely about balance and selectivity, making conscious choices about which effects to apply where and what to leave off. 3D is ultimately about problem solving, case by case. This is why 3D is as much art as it is science and a challenge to both right-brain creative artists and left-brain technical specialists. That's also why it's so fun.

In upcoming articles, I'll be demonstrating some specific techniques within the Autodesk* Softimage*|XSI* software package. Such items include how to use particular types of lights in combination with various shaders and textures, how to employ motion blur, a discussion of the complexities of glows and volumetrics, how to create light rigs and animate lights, and an exploration of how Autodesk* Softimage*|XSI* mimics the physics of light within a 3D scene to create realism. Finally, future articles will discuss the range of rendering strategies and optimization techniques that you can implement

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2 minutes ago, Loki1950 said:

For you blenderheads on the forum blender 2.79 now has filmic colour management which does essentially what Lion's article is talking about in an open source environment.

Enjoy the Choice :)

 I'm trying to  ask some ideas from  Alexander. I'm photograph  I know who use lights from a real studio.

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If we gonna  make portraits is important know about lights.

Example this

Image result for light composition triangle photography studio key light backlight

Spoiler

When teaching lighting techniques, I explain to my students that, to understand where and why a light is positioned in a given way, we must start at the beginning. Classical art, paintings in particular, hold the majority of the clues we need to begin lighting our characters. The aesthetics of lighting, were established hundreds of years ago.

While many great and talented artists have contributed to the fundamental quality of the work we do, the one who is perhaps most attributable is Rembrandt Van Rijn. Rembrandt is the most well-known of the classical Dutch painters. He was born in 1606, in a town southwest of Amsterdam. In 1625, he opened a studio, and began his soulful study of the drama of human experience through painting. He paid particular attention to the faces and eyes of his subjects, because these are the places where the immediacies of revelation are experienced. His keen focus on the shape and details of the bust — shoulders, head and neck — formed the basis for a style that would stay with him his entire career.

Examples of Maliik - Rembrandt with soft fill, Rembrandt with edge, Full frontal key light and soft fill

Start with the Key

One of the primary challenges faced by Rembrandt, and others in 15th century Europe, was the rendering of three dimensional subjects on a two dimensional canvas and the quality of the image in terms of its realism. In Rembrandt’s day, there were few ways to illuminate your subject.  One could paint outside where the lighting was most abundant, but weather was a factor, or in a studio that needed adequate window light or suitable artificial ambiance. Tonal range and color quality indicate the majority of Rembrandt’s subjects were painted inside under oil lamps or candle light.  Notice the warm quality to Figures 1 through 4. 

The shape of the face is fully formed when careful placement of the primary light source is directed toward the subject. In doing so, we create what we call a “key” light.  Over his career, Rembrandt made a series of self-portraits in an effort to understand this relationship. Careful study of the changes taking place in his own likeness revealed how lighting played a central part in defining the texture and character of his subjects.

The key light is the most important light in a three-point lighting scenario. Without it, our subject would not have adequate illumination to establish basic shape, volume, color or texture of skin and clothes. Placement of the key light can have demonstrative effects on the narrowness or fullness of our appearance. A position perpendicular to our frame (side-light) renders a thinner quality to the face. Consider figures 1 and 3.

Man in a Gorget and Plumed Cap, 1631 - Self-Portrait at the Age of 28, 1634

If we close down the angle of the key light, and bring it around more to the front of the subject — closer to the camera lens — the result is a flatter visage with fewer shadows to define any surface features. Note the rounder effects of the more frontal illumination from figures 2 and 4. 

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Image result for light composition triangle photography studio key light backlight

 

Learning Lighting For Video | From Stills to Motion

 

favorite lights we use at SLRLounge.

The Lighting Triangle

The Lighting Triangle consists of a Main light (or Key Light), a Fill light, and a Back light. We call this the lighting triangle because these lights are placed in a triangle formation. The Main light is your main source of light, the Fill light controls the light fall off, and the Back light separates the subject from the background.

kevin young lighting

That's true but not the only component.

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http://photographystatistics.com/learning-lighting-for-video-from-stills-to-motion

https://helloluxx.com/tutorials/cinema4d-2/cinema4d-rendering/10-tips-for-better-lighting-in-cinema-4d/

1. Which type of light?

Depending on the atmosphere you are trying to achieve, choosing the correct light can be fundamental.

Godfather

For a candle or a light bulb in a room, an omni or point light is the obvious choice so the light emits in all directions. For outdoor scenes, perhaps a light dome or GI for ambient light, then compliment this with an area or infinite light for sunlight.

I tend to use Area lights 90% of the time unless I am after a specific effect. Perhaps an infinite light is more suited for sunlight, but the sun after all is a huge area light that happens to be a very long way away. We can simulate this using an area light, by moving it further away and reducing it’s size, we can control the shadow falloff and give the illusion of parallel shadows.

In this example we have the scene rendered using (from left to right) Default Light, Area Light, Area Light with Area Shadow.

Lighting101-01.jpg

2. Use an appropriate shadow

The type of shadow will strongly influence the feeling of the shot, for a bright sunny day you would want the shadow to be dark and hard with very little falloff, this is in sharp contrast to an overcast day where the shadows will be barely visible as the falloff is so high

adjusting the radius/size of the area in the lights details tab, you can control the sharpness and falloff of the shadows, the smaller the area size, the harder the shadow. In the example below you can see how by increasing the area size, the shadow becomes softer. Note that the area shadow is the most accurate type which you can see with the shadow which will always be hard at the point of contact and then will soften as it gets further from the subject.

Area Shadow Size


3. Multiple lights.

One light alone is rarely going to give you the result you’re looking for as it will leave you with areas in your scene which have no illumination.

5-Cars-2-Lighting101.jpg

 

A common lighting technique is three point lighting, this uses a main light (key) for the primary illumination, a fill light to illuminate the darker areas, often finished of with the third light, a rim of light from behind to lift the subject away from the background. There are many ways to light a scene or character and three point lighting is fairly basic, but it is still a good technique to master as it can be a good starting point for many shots.

The key / fill ratio is the balance between the intensity of the various lights dictating the overall contrast. If the key light is bright and fill lights are dull, the result is high contrast dramatic lighting such as the full sun of midday. If the illumination of all lights is more or less the same, the result is the opposite and the scene will look flatter, more like an overcast cloudy day.

Inglorious Bastards

A good trick is to add a spill light to your scene, this is a light positioned similarly to your key light, however the spill should be much softer and illuminate a wider area, the combo of key and spill creates a more natural look than key light alone.

In this example there are only two lights, a key and a fill light, from left to right, the key becomes brighter and the fill becomes darker showing the effect this has on the scene contrast.

Key Fill Ratio

A common lighting trick is to light in layers and have areas of dark move to light and then back to dark to light. This lifts the hero elements away from the background but also allows detail to be seen in the distance. This next render shows how the addition of a rim light will lift the foreground from the background. The render on the right has shadows enabled for the rim light as this removes the unnatural rim on the nose and other areas which should be occluded.

Rim Light


4. Diffuse, Specular and Shadow casting lights.

Although you might be striving for realism, often you may be guided by art direction. Lights can create diffuse illumination, specular highlights and cast shadows, they can do all of this simultaneously or you can disable individual components.

Inverse Square Falloff


6. Solo Lights.

As you add more lights to your project it can be difficult to really assess the influence each has on the scene. I like to solo my lights as I build my lighting, this means that I disable all the other lights in my scene and focus on each individual light to refine the illumination and the shadows being cast. If a light is not really contributing anything to the scene then ditch it or move it. There is no point wasting valuable rendertime on lights and shadows which are coincidental. Each light should matter and have a reason for being there, telling a story, just as your composition and staging does.

Here we have the key, fill and rim lights from a simple three point light setup.

solo your lights


7. Coloured lights.

Rarely in the world is a light source pure white, for more interesting lighting use colour with your lights. A popular lighting trick is to use warmer orange colours for your key lights and then use a colder blues for the ambient and fill lights. If you fold down that tiny triangle in the light general tab you can pick your colour using temperature rather than RGB.

g1

The colour of the lights is essential for portraying a certain time of day or a particular environment. Early morning sun is very different to the harsh lighting of fluorescent tubing. Think of the lighting you’d like to achieve so you have a target in mind and then chase it. Study other 3D renders for reference, and also look at how the old masters worked with light in traditional painting. Artists such as Rembrandt and Caravaggio whose studies of light are an inspiration.

Coloured Lights


8. Light position and direction.

We already looked at the three point lighting rig and this gives a basic studio result, however, your story is far more complex and exciting.

Chura

Think about the environment you’re attempting to recreate and the emotion you’d like to evoke, perhaps it’s a moonlit night with a cool blue from above and a flickering fire off to one side. An early morning with the light low, casting long dark shadows and a deep blue fill from the fading night. Position of your light is fundamental to the story.

Light Direction


9. Linear workflow.

This is enabled by default in your Project Settings and will ensure you’re renders are created in linear color space. In simple terms, the monitor that we work on has a gamma of 2.2, this is so the output of the monitor looks pleasing to the human eye. When you enable Linear Workflow, all elements which contribute to the final rendered image are converted into linear colour space, the renderer processes all images in linear colour space and then finally this is converted back to your chosen colour space / monitor gamma.

Elegance

What this means is your images will have a more balanced and pleasing look to them. Light and colour will react more naturally and generally it will be much easier for you to achieve a good result than if you had linear workflow disabled

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Lighting

Three–Point Lighting

Also called Photographic or Triangle Lighting is a basic principle of lighting. It uses a Key Light and Fill Light angled at  approximately 45° to the subject to reveal shape and shadow detail. A Back Light is used to separate the subject from the background.

Three-pointing lighting is the workhorse of interview-style lighting, and you'll see many of the key principles of more complex lighting from it. It looks complicated at first, but when you see how easily it comes together, not only will you be surprised, but people who look at your videos will think you've done something pretty clever.

The three different "points" in this type of lighting are the key, the fill and the backlight. Each performs a separate task, and the whole would suffer without any of them.

Diagram of three-point lighting
Let's See How It Works

Setting up three-point lighting is always one of the things that attendees enjoy the most, because it gives everybody an opportunity to see exactly what each light is doing and how moving the light changes the scene. We're going to do that on paper here, but experiment at home - find a volunteer to model, and watch your results on a monitor as you move lights in real time.

Key Light

The Key Light is the principal light source. It reveals the basic shape of an object. A spotlight is generally used as a key.

The key is, as the name suggests, the most important light - it's the primary light source that provides most of the illumination on your subject. You place this light about 45 degrees to the model's right or left and about 45 degrees above, aimed straight at the face. The 45-degree angle isn't written in stone - it's simply a starting point. Feel free to adjust it later if necessary.

Also, don't think that because it's providing most of the light, it needs to be extremely bright. Check to make sure that you haven't burned out your whites. You should get strong shadows and a good tonal range. If your key light is too bright, you need to move it back, cut down on the amount of light it's emitting or stop down your camera's aperture.

Fill Light

The Fill Light slows down falloff and renders shadows more transparent. Floodlights are generally used to fill in the dense shadows.

The fill light is about two stops dimmer than the key - you can soften it by backing it up, changing the power setting (if your lights have variable power) or using a diffuser to cut back the amount of light. You place it on the opposite side from the key light, at about the height of the camera. There may be a temptation to put it at the same angle as the key - after all, we like symmetry - but don't do that. One thing we're trying to do here is use shadowing to make the two sides of the face look different, so try your fill light at an angle of 15 or 25 degrees, and adjust it to suit your aesthetic.

Background Light

The Background, or Set Light illuminates the background or is used to backlight the subject to separate her from the the background.

The back light illuminates lights the space above and slightly behind the model. Photographers sometimes call this a rim light or hair light. Its purpose is to give some sense of separation between the model and the background. Using it in a dual purpose, the backlight can also become the background light, rimming the back of the subject while spilling across a background, especially one with some texture, such as fabric. This background light can be snooted or gobo'ed, illuminating some small part of the area behind the subject.

Examples of the various lights using three-point lighting

Reflector

Sometimes powered lights are not available or may not be desired for a more natural lighting effect. In the latter case, natural light is used such as direct sunlight outside or light coming in through a window. This would be the key light. To add a fill light, a handheld reflector that has a shiny reflective material on it reflects some of the key light onto the subject thus providing the fill light. Reflectors are $100 or more, but an effective one can be made of a sheet of cardboard that has the dull side of aluminum foil glued or taped to it.

Lighting using a reflector for the fill light.

Information and graphics provided by TapeStock Online.

http://www.atas.k12.ca.us/ausd/AHS/Teachers/FacultySites/Bradley_video_online/project_4_technical.html

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