TOP TIPS COLOUR GELS IN USE

Make your colours pop in your portraits and beyond with these simple tips and tricks

01 PLACING GELS

When placing a colour gel over your light source, don’t leave any gaps around the edges. If you’re using a studio flash it’s best to leave the modelling light off. It’s can be easier to remove the modelling bulb, as this makes it simpler to place the gel over the flash bulb.

02 COLOUR COMBINATIONS

If you want to combine two or more gels, choose colours that are complementary. If you look at a standard colour wheel, the colours opposite one another will work in harmony, so go for a red/green combo, or blue/orange, or yellow/purple.

03 SETTING FLASH POWER

Gels tend to reduce the power of the light source by a stop or two, so increase your flash power accordingly. Some gels will be more dense than others. If you find the colours look too weak, try reducing your flash power and open your aperture to compensate.

04 HARD AND SOFT LIGHTS

For hard light, we leave the gelled flash bulb bare. For softer, more diffuse light we can fit our gel inside a softbox or beauty dish. The bare light can produce more saturated colours, while the softbox will weaken the effects of the gel but produce softer light.

05 SETTING EXPOSURE

Use Manual mode for exposures. Start by matching your exposure to one light source, then turn on the others and adjust the power until they work together. A good exposure to begin is 1/200 sec, f/8, ISO100. Tweak the aperture and power until shots looks right.

06 BUILD FROM THE BACK

Using several flashes can get complicated, so it helps to build the lighting one at a time. Normally we’d start with the key light, but when gelling a backdrop it’s easier to start by working out an exposure for the back light, then building from there.