Today I’m going to talk to you about how to develop your high key and low key photos. Are two photographic techniques that for portraits are spectacular and much easier to achieve than you can imagine.
I am going to start by giving you some tips prior to development for both types of photography. Although first, considering that lighting is the most important point in this type of image, I can’t help but recommend our mega guide with all the tips and tricks to master lighting in photography.
Tips for taking a high key photo
Before developing, you should consider a few adjustments to be able to start with an image that will give you good results when developing your photo in high key:
- Set your camera to RAW format.
- Look for a white or light background.
- Dress your model in light clothing (preferably white).
- You will need a well-lit environment.
- Open the diaphragm to the maximum or at least to a fairly wide value.
- Raise the ISO if necessary (without going too far to avoid noise).
- Increases exposure +2 EV.
Tips for taking a low key photo
Follow these tips to get a good image to work with in low key:
- Set your camera to RAW format.
- Look for a black or dark background.
- Dress your model in dark clothing.
- Close down the aperture to values like f/5.6.
- Use a soft light. A side angle can be very interesting.
- Burn a point and check the result.
- Adjust the exposure depending on the result, always trying to keep some information in the dark areas.
Go deeper into the settings in our article on how to shoot high and low key step by step, and you can even practice high and low key photography with your mobile phone.
With that said, let’s get to the real topic of this article: Revealing.
Reveal a high-key image step by step
I’m going to do my developing with Adobe Lightroom, but surely whatever your usual editor is, it will also allow you to make these adjustments. As you will see, they are very simple and are in the basics of all the photo editors that exist.
This is the image I’m going to start working with, a very simple image with natural window light on the left side, and “home” lighting on the right from a lamp (hence the orange tints).
If you are interested in EXIF data of this image are: 50mm focal length (the king of lenses 😉 ) at an aperture of f/1.4, ISO 400, shutter speed of 1/50s and +2EV.
the first thing i do is correct color temperature or white balance. Since I’m working in RAW, correcting it is very easy. In this case, what I do is add some “cold” to neutralize the warm color.
Then I’m going to transform to black and white (which is my weakness and which I also think is where the high and low key achieve their greatest drama). This step is unnecessary if you prefer to keep your image in color.
This would be my image for the moment:
As you can see, it lacks white and has plenty of gray and, for my taste, the blacks lack strength. What I do next is increase the whites watching do not burn the face. Deep down, personally, the lack of information is not a problem since I am looking for a pure white characteristic of the high key.
I turn up the highlights and add a bit of black to increase the contrast. The areas in red are pure white areas:
Now I analyze the image and I see that in the upper edges the image is still pulling gray, probably due to some vignetting of the lens. With a concealer brush, I select that area and add a touch of exposure until it looks 100% white.
Just because we look for a high-key image, it doesn’t mean that it should be burned everywhere 😉 . for my taste, it is essential that the face (or object) although it tends to the target, preserve texture, so it is important that you do not have burned areas on your face.
Play with the shadows and highlights to finish adjusting the result. If you want a little more contrast, you should ideally use the “blacks” setting and the “whites” setting to achieve more accurate results.
Once I have my whites very white and the blacks that interest me, I can give the look some contrast to finish emphasizing it, or some focus if necessary.
As you can see, I use very few settings, basically I play with the black and white and the highlights and shadows. I don’t touch any exposure or contrast except in the background, as I’m adjusting exposure much more precisely through highlights and shadows and contrast through black and white or lightness.
This would be my final image after developing it in high key:
Reveal a low key image step by step
Now let’s go to the opposite technique 🙂 revealed in low key. As I have already mentioned above, the ideal is to look for a black background, although it is not essential if it is dark enough compared to the illuminated area.
In my case I have used a soft natural light, a dark background (a corridor with the light off), a black sweater, a bit of imagination and, of course, a touch of editing.
If you are interested in EXIF data of this photo are: 50mm focal length (the king of lenses), f/4 aperture, ISO 400, shutter speed 1/40s and -1EV.
That said, this is the image I started from:
The first thing I have done is correct the white balance of the image because as you can see, it has a rather strange orange tone. Then I have converted it to black and white (of course 😉 ). Now I analyze her face, which is a bit dark for my taste.
In blue you can see the entire pure black area (underexposed and without information). In a normal image, we would surely run away from a reveal like this 😉 . In this case it’s great.
However, I will lighten the face by reducing the shadows and slightly raising the highlights.
I increase the blacks a little to leave the background very black, and I give it some clarity to the image. Next, I emphasize the light eye with a concealer brush by adding a bit of contrast.
It is done. This would be my low key result:
That said, each image is different, but as you can see, getting an image in high or low key at the editing level is very, very simple. However, keep in mind that a high or low key image should already come out of your camera as perfect as possible.
If you apply the tips on how to do a high and low key, editing will not be a problem and you will get impressive results.
Final results
Here you can compare both images. Do you see how they convey completely opposite feelings?
High key photography is purity, happiness or peace. Instead, the low key is mysterious and elegant. Do you already have a favourite? 😉 .
If you are interested in delving into other aspects of portraiture, within this guide you will find many extra tricks to help you compose, narrate, and add other techniques to your image with which you will end up achieving impressive results.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this article, but above all, I hope it encourages you to practice. Because with a little imagination and desire, very interesting results can be achieved without the need for any professional equipment.
Oh, and don’t forget to help us spread the word a bit so that it reaches all those who may be interested 🙂 Thank you very much and we’ll see you in the next article.