I swore I would never post a thread with "high key" in the title on FM. It's an open invitation for critical destruction around here.

But since so many people want to call their images high key, and practically every high key thread turns into a train wreck, Liam suggested that everyone put their money where their mouth is and post examples of their own "high key" work. Steady followed up and said great idea, and I agree, so here we go.

This is an older image of mine which I would call high key. Background was lit a stop or so over, so is 255 throughout. The subject may be just a touch overexposed, with some skin highlights bumping up toward 250 in the reds. Is it high key in your book? Is it hot white? Or simply overexposed? Please post your own examples! If it's an active thread, then it might save some new members from posting what they think is high key and then getting piled on.

This image is properly termed "a hot white image". This is any image in which the background is "essentially white". It is independent of the foreground. In this case, the principle subject is really a "medium key" image.

Although "hot white" is the appropriate term, some individuals correctly term this as a "high key background". Note, however, that a "high key background" implies that there could be considerable detail. A proper "hot white" background has no detail - it is essentially pure white.

For more on this, see:

http://www.tphoto.ca/info/highkey/

or, here is the article in-line:

The terms "high key" and "low key" have had historical consistency for a number of years - certainly into the 1990s. Recently, a number of
portrait photographers have adopted the term "high key" to reflect ny image that is sort of "not dark" pretending that a normal image
with light tones in the background is "high key".

It seems that creating hot white, or high and low key images actually takes some experience and skill.

Searching on the internet can yield a few good references to "high key", "low key", and "hot white" image definitions. Here are a few I found that reflect these terms correctly:

http://www.art-photography-schools.com/key-tone.htm
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1025&message=13075506
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1025&message=3978659
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1025&message=16509677
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1025&message=16221045
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1025&message=11442473 http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1025&message=5074388
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1025&message=3985885
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic2/43938/0#3638860#363886

search for high key - search conditions: "define:high key"

TV lighting terminology is different:
http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic2/264832/0#2202003

In a nutshell, the "key" of a still photograph is a description of the overall tonality of the image. "Low Key" images are very predominately dark tones, "High Key" is very predominately very light tones. "Hot White" refers to images with a clean white background, independent of subject tonality. The following definitions with sample images should help clarify the terms. The samples of high, mid and low key have surprisingly little manipulation in photoshop - the majority of the image characteristic is created by subject choice and simple lighting.

The high and low key sample images are B&W. Of course, a high or low key image could be colour, B&W or a mixture. I simply happen to have
B&W images conveniently at hand for this article.

LOW KEY

The term "low key" describes an image with predominately dark tones (very low RGB values). The subject principle colours are dark. There is some detail highlights and mid tones. In most cases, the image should have a full set of tones from pure white to pure black, however, the significantly dominant tones are quite dark. For a portrait, there should be highlights, possibly in the whites of the eyes, specular or glistening highlights on skin, etc. These highlight areas are what might be termed the visual centre of interest - they attract the viewer's attention. In a low key portrait, this is often the whites of the eyes and the specular detail in skin.

A low key image is NOT a high contrast photo with mostly very dark tones. Such images are a mistaken attempt to create low key in Photoshop. Full tone range with strong dark emphasis is the hallmark of the good low key image. One of the world's great low key portrait photographers is Yosef Karsh. It is worthwhile to examine his images.

low key:

So is this high key?

diggitydawg510 wrote:
So is this high key?


This is, IMO, an over-exposed or light printed image - far to many mid tones in the face and unnecessary blown highlights.

Okay, just wanted to make sure i didn't make a high key photo w/o knowing. this was a really badly overexposed test shot. I was able to save the details and tones because I shot in raw, but i absolutely loved how it came out.

Way to go Todd! This thread should sort the men from the boys

As for Tony's impressive and detailed explanation of high-key, that should set everyone off in the right direction.

I actually think high-key is quite tough to accomplish shooting digital. It was much easier to pull off when shooting film, particularly B&W film, because of the increased dynamic range and tonality in the highlights. With digital, the highlights blow-out so quick that there's little tonality unless you've been really clever with your art direction and lighting.

Get shooting and posting everyone...

i'll shoot another one this week, but here's a submission that i'd consider high key. critique is always welcomed.

Understanding the role of contrast in attracting the attention of a view is far more important than what you label a photograph. A true high-key photo which has a very limited range of tones does a very poor job of leading the viewer to what is most important in the photo. The most effective photos on white backgrounds (i.e. a photo with a high-key background) will be those were the most important center of interests contrast strongly in color and dark tones.

Lighting strategies such as ring light, butterfly and low ratio broad lighting are very effective on white backgrounds because the warm, even saturated skin tone they produce create a very strong COLOR contrast with the background. Short lighting, while very effective on dark backgrounds, can cause the far side and highlighted parts of the face to blend into a white background unless there is darker hair creating a frame around the face. The darkest areas in the photo, such as the pupils of the eyes or dark hair, will also be a strong attractive force on a white background. Keeping the clothing white or light pastel shades will eliminate potential distractions from the face.

To Todd: Good for you for starting this thread. I salute you!

To Tony: Good for you for contributing such detail and so many good examples and the histogram illustration (wish I knew how to do that stuff ).

Tony: I don't get why that photo of Alyson is not high key. While it has some patch of black dress, I get a sense of it being "high key" because so much of the skin of the subject is so light and I don't see it as "mid tone" skin tone at all. I also think that "high key" should also apply to people with darker hair too. In other words, I don't think it should be something restricted to blonds with blue eyes. Don't get me wrong, I am no "high key expert" and I generally don't use a white background because I don't like the look (in most cases). So I am not disputing that you know more about this topic than me (which is easy), I am only saying that one of your examples seems more "high key" than "mid tone on hot white." People with Black Hair (and dark skin) probably want to have a "high key" photo too. Perhaps someone else here will have some examples (I don't).

Now don't get this wrong...but I guess I would not be offended if some woman called me a "hot white guy."

I don't really care for the bleached looking "high key" skin look (no skin texture or tone). I prefer to see real skin and real skin tones (even in BW) even if there is a "hot white" background surrounding the figure. .

I jokingly said in that other thread that I am not a "high key" guy (I guess that means people will call me a "low key guy" ). But, I am glad to see this thread started, and I wish there were more threads like this on this forum so more people could learn here.

Based on the three categories of image keys diplayed by Tony, I suppose what I thought was "high key" is actually "Hot White with Mid Tones." So...I will start using that term in the future here. "Gotta learn something new every day."

Another Prod to the Forum:
I really don't think this forum is tapping into the expertise and the knowledge base that exists in the members (like Tony). So many people could be helped here via this forum if we had more informative threads like this one. People of all ages and abilities and experience levels.





Edited by Steady Hand on May 10, 2008 at 11:19 PM GMT

Steady Hand wrote:
... Tony: I don't get why that photo of Alyson is not high key. While it has some patch of black dress, I get a sense of it being "high key" because so much of the skin of the subject is so light and I don't see it as "mid tone" skin tone at all. I also think that "high key" should also apply to people with darker hair too. In other words, I don't think it should be something restricted to blonds with blue eyes.


The shot of Alyson has large quantities of dark hair, her right shoulder and arm is well into "normal" tone ranges for shadows, In addition, the shadow side of her face is "darkish". The objective of high key is to absolutely minimize these dark areas (other than for a small few for visual emphasis - eg. eyes,,,)

The whole point about knowing what terms mean is that it allows meaningful communication. If people don't clearly understand what a term means, it makes discussion essentially irrelevant. For example, in Cgardner's post above, there is a specific assumption about the meaning of "ring light", "butterfly", "low ratio", "broad light", etc.

It seems to me that, if an art director for the magazine asks for a portrait of a given person to be "low key, broad light" in style, that should give a clear (not vague) definition of what the general requirements are. If the photographer personally decides that "low key" means "don't display too much emotion" and that "broad light" means "use a very wide broad soft box", I suspect that the returned photo will be nothing like the expectation of the art director. On the other hand, the photographer's definitions are really quite reasonable - at least from his perspective.

We don't have too many "technical terms" in photography - it should not be too difficult to know what those few terms mean. Certainly chuck's comment "Understanding the role of contrast in attracting the attention of a view is far more important than what you label a photograph" is true - however that does not imply that misuse or ignorance of the terminology is a good thing.

I also think that "high key" should also apply to people with darker hair too. In other words, I don't think it should be something restricted to blonds with blue eyes.

No problems as long as you can keep the entire image VERY light overall with only small samples of middle and dark tones It is quite difficult to create a high key image of a dark skinned, black haired person - but not impossible. Remember that "high key" is a technical term describing the attributes of an image - not a racial attribution.

tonyfield wrote:

The whole point about knowing what terms mean is that it allows meaningful communication. ....
We don't have too many "technical terms" in photography - it should not be too difficult to know what those few terms mean.


Agree that clear terminology is important to communication and teaching. But the problem is every craft develops "terms of art" which are interpreted differently and expressed differently even among "experts". In the more conventional method of textbook learning a lighting text will typically include a glossary of terms as a baseline for understanding what terms-of-art like "short", "broad", "butterfly" lighting mean to the author and how they are applied in the text.

The problem with forums like this is there is no universally accepted glossary. If we get hung up on what the words mean we run the risk of failing to understand the underlying cause and effect of what the term of art seeks to describe and the goal one should have in mind when deciding to use a light or dark background.

The definitive source for what words mean is a dictionary. A typical dictionary description of "high-key" is: "Art & Photography: having a predominance of light or bright tones." I've also read more detailed unabridged Dictionary definitions which specify a narrow range of light or dark tones for "high- and low-key". But what those definitions do not explain is that tones which predominate in terms of area in a photo are not what will attract the attention the most; what contrasts with the predominant tone will.

Hence the endless debate. The "narrow tonal range" definition would lead one to the conclusion that if the polar bear on the iceberg where to open his black eyes his photographic rendering would no longer be a "high-key". The opposite camp would call a black cat sitting on a white background "high-key" if the cat is very small relative to the size of the background.

What is the more important concept to grasp when deciding how to render the tonality of a scene is that opposites attract and what differs with the predominant background tone will usually attract the most attention. In both examples it will be the eyes of the bear and the body of the cat which attract the most attention. Why? Because they contrast most with the "key" of the background, which occupies more area in the photo.

An interesting corollary to this discussion would be what exactly the word "predominant" in the Dictionary definition means with respect to cropping and key. Consider that if we cropped the photo of the polar bear to an extreme close-up of his face the overall "high key background" tonal dynamic in the photo would remain the same: dark eyes attracting attention on a white background. But do the same crop on the cat and what happens? The tonal relationship would change with the black fur becoming the predominant tone in the photo in terms of surface area, but the white eyes of the cat would be what contrasts the most and attracts the most attention. In effect the black face of the cat becomes the predominant "background" for the intended focal point of the closer view, the eyes. What if there were exactly equal areas of white background and black cat in a photo? How the photo was perceived in terms of "key" would be influenced by whether the cat was surrounded by a narrow border of white or sitting on one side with a big empty white space on the other. We could probably spend hours debating the "key" of that one, no? But the time is better spend on understanding how to define a clear goal for the photo on a perceptual / emotional level and the strategies necessary to create the desired reaction in the mind of the viewer when they see it.

One of the reasons I started posting tutorials on the web was to provide a conceptual baseline for the terms I used in critiques so I would not need to include a textbook definition of every term. I quickly learned there will always be confusion and debate about what the terms "high-key" and "low-key" mean. I've found that simple expedient of adding the work "background" to term, i.e., "low-key background" and "high-key background" is less ambiguous and more universally understood. But unless the discussion involves debating their meaning I try to avoid the terms high- and low-key entirely, for the very reason that the terms are misunderstood, instead describing the cause and effect of contrast in photos having light/white or dark backgrounds. There are no rules in photography, just cause and effect, and one of the most useful cause and effect relationships to understand is how contrast of tone, color, texture, size, apparent position in foreground and background will attract attention in a photo. What contrasts the most with the background will be the spot in the photo the viewer will be pulled towards.

Sometimes the easiest way to explain a concept is to avoid technical terms all together, as I do this tutorial: http://super.nova.org/DPR/COIforTHOU/ That tutorial drives home clothing is the biggest potential distraction from the face in a portrait. Thus if you want the face to be the star of the show it is necessary to keep the clothing from distracting and the most effective strategy to do that is to first put the clothing on a similar background, then select a lighting strategy for the face which will allow it to CONTRAST effectively with the background. Simple, no? No need to even use the word "key".

The best strategy with vocabulary is to avoid words which might be misunderstood.

Chuck

cgardner wrote:
Sometimes the easiest way to explain a concept is to avoid technical terms all together, as I do this tutorial: ...
The best strategy with vocabulary is to avoid words which might be misunderstood.


Yes, that is true. It is certainly more reliable to describe a photograph as

"an image with a large amount of very light tones - typically in RGB values the numerical values are over 128 for all three colours - and has a very few mid to dark tones. However, the image has a full tone range from black to white in spite of it's dominant light tones" (assuming the meaning of RGB, 128, three colours, etc are "common knowledge" with "well known" meanings).

than to say:

"a high key image".

If a "web photographer" cannot master the vocabulary of probably less than 100 or so "artistic terms", discussion of images becomes essentially long dissertations and, for the listener/reader, good cause to prefer sleep to discussion.

It seems to me that one of the functions of the "teacher" is to define and use terms that are part of the professional vocabulary of the photographer. To avoid this is to abrogate the responsibility of the teacher and induce the Humpty Dumpty meaning of words.

I keep having visions of angels and needles.

Doug

I feel overexposed right now. lol

This is a very interesting thread, thanks for starting it Todd. Portraiture is not my primary interest though I did attend a portrait class last year. This was a shot from that session with a model. Does this qualify as high-key? Disclaimer: A bit of PP in LR, but that's it, again, not my specialty.

tonyfield wrote:
For more on this, see:

http://www.tphoto.ca/info/highkey/

OMG, the photo presented as high-key is NOT high-key. It's over-exposed. That's the problem with the Internet... Someone puts together something on a web site and folks start believing some of the misinformation that is out there.

High-key photos are NOT poorly exposed. The real trick with high-key photography is to get proper exposure with white and light colored background and subjects.

Anybody can over-expose a photo. It's amateurish.

_Rob_S_ wrote:
This is a very interesting thread, thanks for starting it Todd. Portraiture is not my primary interest though I did attend a portrait class last year. This was a shot from that session with a model. Does this qualify as high-key? Disclaimer: A bit of PP in LR, but that's it, again, not my specialty.

My take

Geo31 wrote:
tonyfield wrote:
For more on this, see:

http://www.tphoto.ca/info/highkey/

OMG, the photo presented as high-key is NOT high-key. It's over-exposed. That's the problem with the Internet... Someone puts together something on a web site and folks start believing some of the misinformation that is out there.

High-key photos are NOT poorly exposed. The real trick with high-key photography is to get proper exposure with white and light colored background and subjects.

Anybody can over-expose a photo. It's amateurish.


There is only one high key image. The high key image of the lady is a virtually perfectly exposed HP4 image printed for a high key rendition.. If you can show better, please do. It is really "amateurish" to make over the top pronouncements without substantiation. By your comments, you seem to have NOT read the entire article as posted above.

ksmahgrts wrote:
i'll shoot another one this week, but here's a submission that i'd consider high key. critique is always welcomed.


although the image of the child is lightly printed and many of the skin are appropriate for high key (and a bit blown out in the red channel), the overall effect is, IMO, not high key because of the dark shirt.

_Rob_S_ wrote:
This is a very interesting thread, thanks for starting it Todd. Portraiture is not my primary interest though I did attend a portrait class last year. This was a shot from that session with a model. Does this qualify as high-key? Disclaimer: A bit of PP in LR, but that's it, again, not my specialty.

This is certainly close to high key - but, IMO, just misses the mark because of relatively large amount of "dark" red hair.

tutumon wrote:
My take


The team shot is certainly not high key - it is simply an attempt at a hot white background.

tonyfield wrote:

This is certainly close to high key - but, IMO, just misses the mark because of relatively large amount of "dark" red hair.


So by your definition only a pasty Santa Claus in his white dressing gown wearing white boots and making a snow angel in the midst of North Pole would be considered a high key image

OK, I throw my self to the FM lions..

This is high key but some I am sure will disagree.