| name | photographic-lighting |
| description | Plan and troubleshoot photographic lighting for portraits, product/still-life, and field shoots using hard/soft light, direction, fill, bounce, and family-of-angles tests. Use when lighting a photo or diagnosing glare/shadows/reflections. Use research-cataloging for image compression; graphics-fundamentals for graphics internals. Triggers: photo lighting, glare, softbox, fill flash. |
Photographic Lighting
Sources/gaps: references/sources.md — Hunter/Biver/Fuqua's Light: Science & Magic for lighting physics and surface diagnosis; Tony Northrup for field, flash, and portrait practice. Unresolved setup examples live in references/coverage-gaps.md.
Use this skill when the user needs to make a photograph work by changing light: portraits, products, shiny objects, glass, black-on-black, white-on-white, room flash, outdoor sun, glare, catchlights, or shadow shape. Do not use it for image file compression (research-cataloging (image-archival)) or graphics/rendering internals (graphics-fundamentals).
Start With The Lighting Diagnosis
Ask five things before naming gear:
- What must the light reveal: shape, texture, material, face, mood, or legibility?
- What is the subject surface: matte, textured, glossy, metal, glass/liquid, translucent, black, white?
- What is the current dominant light: sun, sky/shade, window, ceiling, flash, softbox, reflector, screen?
- What is failing: hard shadow, flatness, glare, missing edge, mixed color, dull eyes, blown white, blocked black?
- What can move: subject, camera, light, background, reflector/flag/diffuser, time of day, exposure?
Then solve in this order:
- Size: make the light effectively larger/smaller.
- Direction: move the light/camera/subject until highlights and shadows describe the form.
- Reflection: include or exclude the light from the subject's family of angles.
