High Key???

Gambrel

Is this an example of high key or is it just over exposed?

craig_d

I'd call it overexposed. High-key doesn't mean all the details are blown out. In this picture, most of the wedding dress is just a featureless white region, and so is the minister's outfit (I think he's wearing a white suit over a white shirt, but it's hard to be sure).

Gambrel

Any Tips on how to process this in LR?

Thanks
Ryan

craig_d

I'm not an LR user, so I can't give specific instructions.

If this was shot raw, I'd try to pull as much detail as possible out of the white areas by turning on highlight recovery, adjusting the exposure level and, if necessary, pulling down the upper part of the tone and/or luminance curves. Exactly what these are called and how you use them varies in different raw processors, so you'll have to experiment if no one else can offer any LR-specific advice. But ultimately you may find that this isn't recoverable if you've really blown out the white areas.

ivar

There is no 'one' definition of High Key, but High Key photos usually have high exposure values (not overexposed!!!), low contrast and lack of/few shadows. It is done by lighting.

Wikipedia has some limited info on this, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-key_lighting

High Key was actually the theme of the previous People Photo Challenge.

catspaw

Over exposed. Most high key examples that I've seen have involved white backgrounds. Everything is exposed properly.

While not the extreme high key, this is at least along those lines ... from my understanding at least.

Gambrel

ivar wrote:

There is no 'one' definition of High Key, but High Key photos usually have high exposure values (not overexposed!!!), low contrast and lack of/few shadows. It is done by lighting.

Wikipedia has some limited info on this, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-key_lighting

High Key was actually the theme of the previous People Photo Challenge.

Thanks Guys! That thread is the first place I have seen High Key. I will do some more reading and give it a try again once I feel like I know what I am doing.