There's a recent shot of a baby in the People forum that is supposed to be high-key. I couldn't have said it wasn't, but others knew right off. The explanation given was that a high-key shot is a properly exposed shot where the histogram lies to the right. What I can't understand is that I've always thought a properly exposed image had an even histogram all the way across. How can it be both?
Basically, a high-key shot is classically defined as a photo that is mostly white with almost no shadows in it at all.
If you look at a histogram, the curve is going to fall mostly to the right side because all the brighter pixels are on that side. Remember a histogram is just showing a distribution of dark to light pixels. The darker pixels fall to the left on a histogram and the white pixels fall to the right. If you think of the histogram in terms of the Zone system it might make a little more sense. Zone V is your "middle grey" or mid-tones. To the right of that would be you Zone VI and VII, which are mostly light greys heading towards white; to the right of that would be Zone VIII, which is mostly white. The other side of the histogram, to the left side of the mid-tones, shows darker to black.
There is no "properly exposed image has an even histogram all the way across". What would you think shows in a histogram for a low-key portrait, where the subjects face and hair that are just illuminated enough to see?
The exposure is proper for a low-key portrait with a mostly black background...and the histogram will be distributed mostly to the left side.
Unfortunetly enough people don't completely understand a histogram. In a low key photo you will have a nice curve that goes to the right edge. I need to know more about them. Of course film users do not use histograms. Thats another story, I'm not the one to tell that one. Maybe someone can provide some links on histograms.
Any way, I would be the one that made that comment. High-key craze really drives me nuts. I've so many shots that have been washed out and/or overexposed and people are calling them high key. They are not necessarily high key.
High-key is simple. Basically, but not always, a white background, white clothing, and a light skined person. Usually you dedicate a couple lights to overexpose the background to get a good pure white background. Of course this is not the only way to do this.
"High-key lighting is a style of lighting for film or television that aims to reduce the contrast ratio present in the scene. This was originally done partly for technological reasons, since early film and television did not deal well with high contrast ratios, but now is used to create a light mood. It is often used in sitcoms and comedies."
"Low-key lighting is a style of lighting for film or television. It attempts to create a chiaroscuro effect. In traditional lighting design for black and white photography, also called three-point lighting, there are a key light, a fill light, and a back light.
The key light shows the contours of an object by throwing areas into light or shadow while the fill light provides partial illumination in the shadow areas to prevent a distracting contrast between bright and dark. For dramatic effects, one may wish the contrast to be high — to emphasize the brightness of the sun in a desert scene, to make a face look rugged, seamed, and old, or to isolate details in a mass of surrounding shadow. A variety of methods can be used to create these effects.
Low-key lighting consists of lowering the height of the key light (which is conventionally 30 to 45 degrees above the subject's eyeline). When a key light is high, shadows are cast downward, often out of the camera's view. A low key light throws shadows on visible walls and so forth. More important, it tends to throw large parts of the face and body into shadow.
It is perfectly possible to use fill light in these large areas of shadow, reducing the contrast. Generally the term 'low key' refers to cases in which no such care is taken.
Low key is also used in cinematography to refer to any scene with a high contrast ratio, especially if there is more dark area than light."
NickyD wrote:
Basically, a high-key shot is classically defined as a photo that is mostly white with almost no shadows in it at all.
If you look at a histogram, the curve is going to fall mostly to the right side because all the brighter pixels are on that side. Remember a histogram is just showing a distribution of dark to light pixels. The darker pixels fall to the left on a histogram and the white pixels fall to the right. If you think of the histogram in terms of the Zone system it might make a little more sense. Zone V is your "middle grey" or mid-tones. To the right of that would be you Zone VI and VII, which are mostly light greys heading towards white; to the right of that would be Zone VIII, which is mostly white. The other side of the histogram, to the left side of the mid-tones, shows darker to black.
There is no "properly exposed image has an even histogram all the way across". What would you think shows in a histogram for a low-key portrait, where the subjects face and hair that are just illuminated enough to see?
The exposure is proper for a low-key portrait with a mostly black background...and the histogram will be distributed mostly to the left side. ...Show more →
Thanks for the information. I'm one of those who don't understand the histogram well. Just enough to check if anything is blown out.
I still don't understand it, even with what you said. I'd like to though, but I'm a hands on person -- almost need to see someone using it, when they use it, to know why they use it. I don't even know why I'd use it. Sad..lol.
High-key is simple. Basically, but not always, a white background, white clothing, and a light skined person. Usually you dedicate a couple lights to overexpose the background to get a good pure white background. Of course this is not the only way to do this.
The skin tone of the person is not part of the definition. Nor do you overexpose the background. You'd have a light background properly exposed, a minimization of shadows, and overall light-toned clothing, props, et cetera. Most often, the skin tone of the person (even a Caucasian) is the darkest tone in the scene. In Zone terms, every tone controllable by the photographer should be above Zone V.
It's just as possible to do high-key with a dark-skinned person as it is to do low key with a light-skinned person.
