Shooting With Color Gels

Shooting With Color Gels

There are times when I find myself shooting the same stuff or using the same lighting setup over and over again. Repetition helps to improve and fine-tune my skills, but sometimes it just feels boring and degrading, let alone useless for my portfolio.

But as much as I dislike feeling stuck and repeating myself, I now realize how such times in fact help me to become a better artist and shooter. It's usually the desire to entertain myself and experiment that leads me to new personal artistic discoveries. It's when I'm bored and want to "spice it up", I start searching for new lighting ideas, tricks and techniques.

If you have come across this post at a similar time in your photography career, I hope a stream of new ideas and images will pump up your love for photography, inspiration and enthusiasm. Let me offer you a few fun lighting ideas in a series of posts, and I will start with one of my most favorite lighting accessories - color gels. I will also mention how to make each lighting technique execution rather affordable without compromising the quality of the outcome.

SHOOTING WITH COLOR GELS

Equipment that you will need

1. The strobes and flashes that you already have. Continuous lighting equipment will also work, but you have to be careful and make sure the higher temperature of the lamp doesn't melt the gels, which in turn will damage the light bulb.

2. You can buy proper photography color gels or filters - they start from as low as $6.99 for a set of four 12-inch color gels online. But I personally use colored cellophane rolls or wrapping paper from hobby and craft stores.

I actually only had to purchase them once a long time ago, and I haven't gone through 1/3 of any of my four rolls (yellow, green, red and purple). Each roll cost me under $5 and I use them in almost every studio photo shoot. So, not only they are really cheap, they also last for years.

The density of colored cellophane and color gels sheets may be different and colored cellophane is often very thin, so the resulting colors may be not as vivid. To solve this problem I simply double- or triple-fold it before mounting on the strobe, and, like I said, I am still not even half-way through my rolls.

3. Barn door / Gel frame assembly or a roll of duct tape. Obviously, if your studio is full of expensive lighting equipment and cool photography "toys", and that's how you and your clients like it, you might choose to go for proper color gels and gel frame assembly from your lighting equipment manufacturer.

I personally carry my colorful rolls and duct tape to all my commercial and personal shoots, and my clients and fellow creatives don't care how I do the "color magic" as long as I get them the pretty pictures they are after.

If you end up deciding to use colored cellophane and duct tape, keep in mind, that the cellophane will melt if it's placed too close to the modeling lamp as the lamp heats up during the shoot. The cellophane will be ruined and it may also damage the lamp if you're not careful. I always turn off modeling lamps after the lights' power and positions are adjusted for the shoot, so I don't have to worry about it.

Shooting

And here comes the fun part! There are so many ways you can utilize your color gels, it's not even funny. There are a couple of main ways of how I use color gels in my lighting setups: coloring rim lights and coloring the main light, and tons of variations of each. Let me show you what I have created with them and how I achieved those color effects.

COLORING RIM LIGHTS

Lighting diagrams for such setups are usually similar and vary slightly for different shoots. You can add one or two (or more) rim lights, background light, fill light, etc.

Variations:

1. Using only one strobe for colored rim light, subtle touch of color:

1_audrey-JK-web

2. Using only one strobe for colored rim light, vivid and rich color. You need to pump up the strobe power and use a dense color gel, or fold your colored cellophane a few times to get nicer and richer color.

Shooting with color gels

3. In the following image you can see that even though the lighting setup is similar to the previous (mirrored), there's a lot more color on the model's body. You can achieve this by moving the strobe with the colored light slightly closer to the camera plane allowing more light to spill on the model's face and body, and, of course, position the model accordingly.

 Shooting with color gels

You can also control the width of the rim light by adjusting the position of the strobe, moving it along the camera-model-background axis (see illustration below). The closer the strobe to the plane of the model's position, the wider the rim light will be. And the further back from the model's plane along that same camera-model-background axis you place it, the thinner the rim light will be, i.e. less colored light visible to the camera will be spilling on the model's face. I know this may sound confusing, but once you try this in your studio, you will see how simple it actually is.

Be careful to not move the strobe too close to the plane, in which the model is positioned, or the rim light will become side light, and side light can create messy shadows on the model's face and ruin the shot. But it, of course, depends on what you're trying to achieve in your photo.

 Shooting with color gels

4. Two strobes with color gels, one on each side, subtle touch of color. When I want a very thin rim light on the model's cheek, I usually point the colored light approximately at the back of the model's head.

Shooting with color gels

5. Two strobes with color gels, one on each side, vivid and rich colors. I also added a red color gel onto the background light. I was shooting with gray backdrop and it looked really dull behind the colorful subject.

Shooting with color gels

  6. You can also play with longer shutter speeds, but I will talk about this technique in one of my future posts.

Shooting with color gels

COLORING THE MAIN LIGHT

This is when it helps to have a roll of colored cellophane. I can cut a generous piece and wrap it around my beauty dish or even a soft box, if I want to.

Variations:

Basically, everything goes - you can mix strobes and flashes, and try various light modifiers. I normally combine complimentary colors, but it never hurts to experiment with unexpected pairs of colors.

1. In this setup I used a beauty dish on a strobe (red) and a simple flash (green).

Shooting with color gels

2. Two strobes: hard blue light and soft red light. There's a simple metal reflector on the strobe (blue) and it's placed a little further away from the model, so that it creates hard light and a well-defined shadow on the wall.

The strobe with the beauty dish (red) is much closer to the model, the light is softer (larger size of the light source, plus diffuser and it is closer to the subject) and its mission is to only fill the shadow behind the model with rich red color.

Shooting with color gels

These are the setups I've played around with, and I'm sure you will come up with many more if you like the idea of experimenting with color gels. Come back and show us what you got!

Use #FScolorgels hashtag when sharing your photos on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Have fun!

Check out my full tutorial on beauty photography to dive deep into shooting and editing at the highest level. You can also check out these incredible Photoshop tutorials and plugins that will speed up your workflow and help you create stunning, professional work.  Save 15% by using "ARTICLE" at checkout.

Julia Kuzmenko McKim's picture

Julia is a Los Angeles based internationally published Beauty & Fashion photographer, digital artist, retoucher and educator. An International College of Professional Photography (Melbourne, Australia) graduate. Retouching Academy founder and Editor-in-Chief.

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82 Comments
Previous comments

The red looks awesome on the models skin, well done Lorenzo!
And purple is my all time favourite color for colored lighting :)

Thanks Julia, that means a lot coming from you : )
I have noticed, when using the purple Gels I really have to crank up the strobe in order for it to be noticeable!!!

"You need to pump up the strobe power and use a dense color gel, or fold your colored cellophane a few times to get nicer and richer color."
What about dialing down the strobe power and having it a bit closer?

Roberto, if the colored cellophane isn't dense enough the color won't be richer no matter how close or far you move the strobe.

what I've noticed is that usually with the same color gel, if you increase the power, the color is less reach. What I meant is, if I don't add another color gel, but I dial down the power, I should have a richer color, but of course the intensity of the light is reduced, so moving the strobe to compensate for the reduced power should do the trick. But maybe I'm completely off, I was just wondering..

btw great article, I loved it, I don't usually shot this kind of pictures but it's good to experiment, thanks for the tips

No, no, you are right, but that's correct given your color gel is dense enough to give you that rich color. However, in the context of my article - I was talking specifically of much stronger colored light, as opposed to subtle touch of color in the previous photo.

That makes a lot of sense. Thanks again.

Sure, it's my pleasure Roberto :)

Amazing post! Really informative and great diagrams.
Here's my first test ever with coloured gels from a few months back...
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=457320077671020&set=a.235626...

Photographer: Lorenzo. P.
Model: Amarie. S.
MUA: Michelle. S.
www.Lorenzopphotography.com

Photographer: Lorenzo. P.
Model: Emilia. H.
MUA: Ariel. N.
www.Lorenzopphotography.com

"Fog and Gels"
Photographer: Lorenzo. P.
Model: Serious Jones
www.Lorenzopphotography.com

fantastic

Thanks so much for the love brother!!! : )

These are a great help, thanks a ton.

Amazing the effects a gel can have on photos like these, I personally don't play with gels much - but they can be extremely helpful .<a href="http://www.lawsonphoto.us/tips-to-improve-pictures/" rel="nofollow">More Photography Tips</a>

Great article - the lighting diagrams are really helpful! Here's one of mine, combining an existing blue light and a purple gel.

I think I'm in the right path. Here's my niece Laura with pink cellophane

Any tips on white balance settings when using gels?

When you use the beauty dish, you use it with a monolight or a strobe? Btw, great post Julia.

Hi Julia, I appreciate this information it's perfect. If you don'tmind me asking what is your preference in regards to using muslin or paper backgrounds. I know that paper backgrounds are more difficult to transfer around, but they seem more crisp and clean. Can you achieve that with muslin?

Also for someone starting out I was thinking of purchasing from kaezi due to my budget.

Simply amazing

Just started learning to use gels, great article!

What colors are your favorites to use?
If it's not ruining the secret, what green did you use on the #1 for coloring the main light?

hi, I can´t see the pictures supporting the explanations and techniques in this article. Is there any way to unblock the content and see the pictures? Thank you in advance!

Just coming across this article and it is very informative. Thank you for the easy breakdown of each set up. I'm looking forward to my first run with gels even more now. :)

Awesome article, and photos!

Inspired me to try my hand at it. Interested adding that reflector on the dark side as a fill. So that was 2 kickers, 1 key and the fill for what turned into 4 light sources. I underestimated how many layers of the gels to get deeper colors. I used holiday paper from amazon for about $11 for 20"x12.5'. Reusable, so should be fine. I used painters tape to stick it on my kino's barn doors.

excellent article, great great great artist !!!

Hey - lovely work. I'm experimenting with beauty dishes and love the output of your work here. What size and colour is the dish (silver/white) etc? Thanks

It would be nice is there was some kind of cheat sheet..showing the combinations of colored gels along with changing the ISOs....in the camera.....

Hi, Julia! Thank for this information! I love colors, and I will implement this techniques in my next shooting!