Soft or Harsh Lighting?

Monday, December 12, 2011

To Use or Not to Use

Soft or Harsh Lighting?

(Thank you Mr. William Shakespeare for

modifying your famous line)

I was wondering what to write about today when I remembered that I have a listing for 3 beautifully-restored Tootsietoy Grahams. Et Voila (and here it is translated from French) here's the instalment. I'm going to talk a bit about harsh and soft lighting. My normally-used LTM spot lights were used in both the harsh and soft lighting for the Grahams.

Harsh Light

Soft Light

1. Creates a big contrast between light and dark tones    1. Creates less contrast  between light and dark  

2. Creates strong shadows with sharp edges                    2. Creates softer shadows with soft edges 

3. Harder to capture dark tones                                       3. Easier to capture dark tones

4. Smaller highlights and harsh shadows                       4. Larger highlights and soft shadows

Terminology Definitions

Contrast : The difference between how light and dark 2 items are. Black and white are high contrast, whereas, white and ivory are low contrast. Contrast can also apply to light.

Shadow: The actual dark areas cast by an object when light is from the side. The term also is applied to any dark area of a photo.

Highlight: The bright area of any photo

Tone: a general term to describe a shade, or a colour intensity. A dark tone of red would be the colour of blood, whereas a light tone of red might be pink. 

Sharp Edge: a very distinct shape (2-D) to an object's shadow. The term can also apply to hight\lights

Soft edge: a subtler and less-defined shape (2-D) to an object's shadow. The term can also apply to highlights.

     I'll leave it up to you to decide which light type you like. If you're working for a client then he or she may want one over the other. If you're photographing something for yourself, you may prefer one over the other.