What is good lighting? We know that good lighting is essential to the proper emotional rendering of any scene. We usually recognize it when we see it. How can we define good lighting? When do we know it’s good? When we look at film, our eyes tell us if it’s good. Can we look at the monitor to know if it’s good? Perhaps not. How about a histogram, will that tell us if the lighting is good? Probably not. What about the measurement numbers reported by the densitometer, if they’re right, do they indicate good lighting? Sometimes they do.
Good lighting in a digital environment is a multiple part cognition. It starts with a good looking monitor that seems to convey your emotional intent. Range Colors need to indicate emotionally appropriate transitions from the highest & lowest separable reflectances to endpoints the target can accurately render. Appropriate densitometric readings from every important reflectance and, every important transition, must be verified. Any neutral reflectance in the scene must render neutral. Finally, the final reproduction must validate the above observations by reproducing as you predict. That’s a lot of stuff to get right.
Good lighting is part artistic and part technical. The artistic part is up to you. Of technical import is the quality of the light. One of the most important components of this quality is the color of the light, especially if there is more than one light source illuminating your scene. We know our digital camera software can make the RGB values of any chosen reflectance, identical. The T2 software uses the sample size as the area for consideration when doing a Setup>Balance or a Neutral Program computation. What happens if the neutral reflectance is not evenly lit with regard to color temperature? Suppose the neutral patch you chose for balance is lit by a new light box on the left and an old, yellowed light box on the right? Can the software balance the dissimilar color temperatures of your light boxes? Yes, but only within the area of your Sample Size. The neutral reflectance will render cooler to the left of the sample area and warmer to the right of the sample area. This points to the value of making sure all light sources illuminating a set are as close as possible in temperature unless you want to use color difference in an emotionally communicative fashion.
How close in temperature do the sources have to be? 200 degrees Kelvin, which is the difference between each filter in the 81 and 82 series Wrattens. Do not hesitate to filter strobe heads with cine gels (the polyester filters are far more heat resistant than acetate filtration) to even out temperature variations.
Try a test. Use a Tone Ball™ or make a spherical reflectance neutral by painting it uniformly with gray spray paint. Light it using two sources of known equal color temperature. Verify the neutrality by sampling both sides of the spherical reflectance. Then change the color temperature of one of the sources until you can just see the monitor displayed difference in one side of the spherical reflectance. Measure the difference in color temperature of the two heads with a color temperature meter. Note the value and don’t bother filtering unless the sources you’re using on set exceed the value you’ve noted.
Also important to color is the repeatability of your strobes. Check repeatability by successively reading the same pixel after several three pass captures. Note the individual RGB values. The values when read by a sample size of 1 should not vary from capture to capture. If they do vary you’ll want to include a neutral reference in every scene, just outside the capture (crop) area. Tone Balls™ are particularly good for this inclusion.
There are two methodologies for shooting that you may want to try. One is to use the hardest possible source when shooting. Careful filling is essential here. Because the press target has so few tones it can render, use the hard light to give snap to the final reproduction. This methodology is best used for dramatic lighting and full scale interpretations. The second methodology is to light very full; use large, soft sources in close to the product. Set the density range low, 1.3 to 1.5. This low density range with the soft, full light will also render snap to the final reproduction. This style is good for high volume workflows that traditionally outline (drop out the background). Experiment with both styles, you may find a use for both styles.
As you progress with your shooting skill, you may want to try shooting fewer and fewer tones between highlight and shadow. While this places more responsibility on the shooter, it gives the final reproduction more contrast and saturation, two attributes often in short supply on printing press renderings, especially those presses that traditionally print digital photography (high volume, so quality). This is the digital compromise; ease of shooting with big density ranges and soft lights versus more the difficult crafting of images using lower density ranges and/or harder lighting. The big density range/soft light approach does not always remap all that well when adjusting range (after the capture) for the press target, as compared to shooting the proper number of tones properly transitioned for that same target.
As the press target loses tones (lower paper quality) it becomes more difficult to make that target sing. Newsprint certainly gets its share of disdain because of the low cost/low quality reputation, but it is a most difficult target to master. If you can make the newsprint target look like a million bucks you’ve done a really good job. Take a look at the Sears and Target advertising that shows up in the newspaper. You may not always equate those reproductions with uncoated stock but look closely at the transition of tone and the control of those transitions, especially at the ends of the scale; where minimum density transitions to 10% and where 85% fades to black. Compare those reproductions with your images on press. Look also at some of the other reproductions that show up in your newspaper or magazines. Evaluate the quality of the results you’re getting with the quality of the best samples you can find. Make their best, your aimpoint, and adjust your lighting with their best in mind. For additional information on good lighting, see the topic on Density Range.