Color gels are used in photography to enhance a bold color so that it draws the attention of the audience immediately. If you want to experiment with lighting and play with colors, learning color gel photography is the right choice for you. In this article, you will learn the top 4 easiest ways for applying color gel in photography that will work for any photo, irrespective of the genre if you want to make it interesting. Though there are hundreds of ways to do it, and you can even customize your own way of applying the color gel, these four ways are the most simple ones for the beginner.

Top 4 Ways To Apply Color Gel In Photography

Use An External Flash

As a beginner, you will always find it easy to apply the color gels with an external flash like a Speedlight. This will let you adjust the direction of the color beam by turning the flash head. just the way you want. This comes cheap, so it will not be an issue even if you're on a tight budget. You can also use strobe lights, but using such a bigger unit requires more expertise. Using an external flash gives you an additional benefit- you get to adjust the intensity of the light beam just the way you want, manually. To add color gel to the flash, you can simply cut a piece of colored cellophane, and fix it to the flash uniformly with the help of tape. You can also bounce the light off a surface. Just be careful that you choose a plain white surface with any patterns, otherwise colored beams bounce off from one another, and the patterned surface will create a horrible effect in your image.

Use Color Gels In Outdoor Photography

You might not be convinced to use color gel in outdoor photography, but it actually produces good results. You can try it on your own, especially when you take outdoor portrait photographs. It even works well for landscapes too. It does not require much different setting up procedure than what you do in the case of indoor color gel photography. Take the distance from your lens to the subject into consideration. If you are clicking from far, do not use this method, as it will not be effective.

Use Color Gel According To Mood

Specific colors evoke certain emotions and alter moods in the audience. So, it will be very effective if you apply color gel to your photos according to the mood they convey. For example, red is a warm color that lifts the mood up, and blue is a cool tone that is usually considered a bit melancholic. Needless to say, you must not use these colors in photos that represent the opposite mood. If you apply color correction gels, your photos will appear like they have been shot in natural light.

Use Color Gel With White Light

You can mix the usage of color gel, and normal white light to break the monotony. Try using the latter as the main source of lighting, to make your audience focus only on the subject, or an important portion of the image.

Written By Sanga Basu, Content Writer, WPC.

Use An External Flash

Top 4 Ways To Apply Color Gel In Photography

Published by WPC Official Account on Nov'06,2022

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