IMAGE CATALOG – PHOTO HANDBOOK

Lighting

Lighting is one of, if not the most important parts of a picture. Lighting is what can make or break a photograph. In stock photography, lighting must be dead on for an image to be accepted. To get the perfect lighting within an image may require more than just proper exposure. You may require some Photoshop enhancements to correct lighting in difficult light situations, especially when working with outdoor shadows, blue skies and forest type shots.

Although some forest type shots may look good in some parts of the picture, many times we come across a perfectly exposed sky, with darkness throughout most of the forest.

The two main types of lighting terminologies that everyone will be familiar with are over exposed and underexposed. Overexposed images will have “white” like areas or “bleached out” type areas. Underexposed is when an image is too dark. For instance if you take a picture that has some shadows. Instead of the shadows darker where you can still see detail, the shadow is so dark, everything is black. Sometimes this is intentional and may work if the composition allows.

Below are a couple of examples of an overexposed image, an under exposed image and one that is properly exposed.

Overexposed - Will not be accepted	Underexposed - Will not be accepted

Much better lighting