Wednesday, March 21, 2007

High Key

Having a new camera and a pair of white cats has led me to the inevitable, high key photos. Tell me what you think... Constructive critisism will be greatly appreciated.

Pan in the window.


Thor on the floor. Does this really count as high key or is there too much shadow?

Thor in the window.



Thor in the window (again). Does the soft focus add or detract?

4 comments:

kmm said...

Thanks for commenting on my bee. The cats look lovely. Think the soft focus works well Kerrin

Anonymous said...

Hi Jennifer,

The images of your cat are not "high key" - they are simply high contrast with some overexposed highlights.

A high key image contains all tones from pure black to white however the vast majority of the image is in the lighter tones. For example, the white cat should be light white and maybe the only dark tones should be they eyes and nose. You really should be shooting the cat in relatively flat light against a white background. Then use photoshop to dial in a good high key. This can often be done with simple curve adjustment.

A more complete definition of "key" is on:

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

tony
tony@shaw.ca

Jennifer said...

Thanks, Tony, for the helpful information!

Rebecca Pettigrew said...

Quite nice. I am making a few attempts at high key... not really sure how I feel about it!