{"id":219949,"date":"2016-02-27T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2016-02-27T14:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lightstalking.com\/?p=219949"},"modified":"2021-02-24T02:15:25","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T07:15:25","slug":"high-key-low-key-moderate-adjustments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/high-key-low-key-moderate-adjustments\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Use High Key, Low Key and Moderate Adjustments for Creative Photographs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
High key photography and low key photography are stylistic approaches that are used to convey a moment, a mood and ambience. High key<\/a> uses brights and lights to take out all the harsh shadows in a photograph and can be created using natural bright moments or with unnatural application of bright lighting and flash. It is fun, bright, cheerful and gives a modern, upbeat feeling. In outdoor photography, high key can also convey heat and harsh bright elements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the flip side, low key photography<\/a> is the opposite. From drama, dark, moody and broody, to sultry, low key leverages darks and contrasts. Consider the analogy of working in the dark, adding a little bit of light to illuminate the points of interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to working with high key and low key in the field, the robust features of Lightroom<\/a>, Photoshop<\/a>, Google's Nik Collection and other plug-ins make it possible and easy to push photos into the high and low key realms with post processing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For illustration, we'll use the same subject and apply post processing techniques in high key, low key and traditional edits. To get started, I used a pier image from a recent Florida trip taken around sunrise where bracketing was used to get three different exposure settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The photo that was the brightest (longest exposure) was processed using Lightroom to achieve a high key effect. The photo was created by pushing the white, highlight, shadow and exposure sliders to the right. The further to the right these sliders are pushed, the brighter and lighter effects take over. Clarity and contrast sliders were pushed to the left to further soften the darks. The desired effect was bright, misty waves balanced with a bit of hard texture in the pier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n