From the course: Learning Studio Lights and Flash Lighting

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Basics of lighting ratios

Basics of lighting ratios

From the course: Learning Studio Lights and Flash Lighting

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Basics of lighting ratios

The term lighting ratios may sound somewhat technical, but it doesn't have to be. It's really just about how the light falls upon your subject, and how you control it. In this movie, I'm not going to get scientific and precise, measuring the light with a professional light meter. We're just going to eyeball it. Now, the definition of a lighting ratio is the difference in intensity between the shadows and highlights in your image, and it's expressed numerically as a ratio. For example, one to one, two to one, three to one. Now, if your eyes are glazing over at this point, stay with me. It will make more sense when I show you. Now here's a picture I took of my friend Josh with a one to one lighting ratio. That means that I had two lights illuminating Josh, placed at equal distance from his face and at equal intensity or brightness. You can see that both sides of his face are lit without much shadow at all. Now this one to one ratio does help diminish any imperfections and looks happy…

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