Congrates to all our winners! DSS Challenge #105 High Key

JAG · June 25, 2012

Choose up to your Top 10, you have multiple votes! You may vote for one or more up to 10.
The gallery is here for commenting.

You have the ability to choose up to 10 of your top choices by selecting them from the poll.
The poll will remain open for 72 hours, and any previously registered member of DGrin may vote.

Warning: you will not be able to come back and add more choices after you click the voting button.

There were 1 disqualifications this round :cry
vos.e@me.com - no such dgrin user name, image taken out of challenge time frame

P.S. If your observant you will see that more than 10 can be chosen. Just remember if you vote for all of them its like you didn't vote :wink *Also you are able to see any photo in its large form by clicking on it.

Jeffro · June 26, 2012

I haven't been able to participate lately, but I managed to stop in and vote this round. Good luck everyone.

dnie · June 26, 2012

Interesting round and it certainly had me thinking and researching things. I am not sure how much I learned about "High-Key" except to learn that everyone interprets it differently. That said... it hard to comment on the gallery (like I hope to find time to do this round) when I am still not sure what true High Key is.

kdotaylor · June 26, 2012

dnie wrote: »

Interesting round and it certainly had me thinking and researching things. I am not sure how much I learned about "High-Key" except to learn that everyone interprets it differently. That said... it hard to comment on the gallery (like I hope to find time to do this round) when I am still not sure what true High Key is.

I agree...there are some nice photos in the gallery, but judging is hard because I still don't know exactly what makes a "high key" photo.

JAG · June 26, 2012

high-key
adj (Miscellaneous Technologies / Photography) (of a photograph, painting, etc.) having a predominance of light grey tones or light colours.

dnie · June 26, 2012

Thanks Jag,
I guess I was thinking of it in basically the correct way. I saw so many different versions of it while searching for info that I thought didn't look like what I thought of as high key. It made me question what I had in mind.

JC · June 26, 2012

I haven't been contributing much either, but the serendipity of this challenge with my new (and newly healthy) cats was too good to miss. I can't believe the difference between my first test shots and my final shots.

I read a lot about high key and high key lighting a couple of months ago when I was trying to figure out how to get something to be semi transparent without completely blowing out the edges.
There seemed to be a discrepancy in where the term originated from, either from high key painting (meaning the tonal values) or from the key light in cinematography. David Muench has a page on high key landscapes (just google Muench and high key), that look very much in the style of high key painting, and there's a lot of stuff out there on the use of high key lighting in film to set a feeling.

What I ended up taking away from all that, is that the light on the subject (or more importantly the light coming off the subject) is just as important as the background light, to create the overall high tonal values of the final image for high key photographs.

That's my interpretation. A quick perusal of the web shows that there are multiple other interpretations.

PedalGirl · June 26, 2012

This is the definition I've been going by... it seems to be the consensus of most of the articles I've read and meshes with Jag's official defiinition:
"high key" is that there is little contrast in the photo and the histogram is shifted to the right. The majority of the tones lie in the highlights and there is minimal tonal range.

In any case, this challenge certainly has been a learning experience for us all.

Jenn · June 26, 2012

PedalGirl wrote: »

This is the definition I've been going by... it seems to be the consensus of most of the articles I've read and meshes with Jag's official defiinition:
"high key" is that there is little contrast in the photo and the histogram is shifted to the right. The majority of the tones lie in the highlights and there is minimal tonal range.

In any case, this challenge certainly has been a learning experience for us all.

So does that mean just black and white? If so ... I missed it totally.

PedalGirl · June 26, 2012

Jenn wrote: »

So does that mean just black and white? If so ... I missed it totally.

No, not necessarily black and white only. For instance on my entry... it's color but all of my histogram info lies in the highlights section with next to nothing in the midtones and shadow section. Unfortunately I'm not at home where I can post a screen shot of it right now.

JC · June 26, 2012

Jenn wrote: »

So does that mean just black and white? If so ... I missed it totally.

no 'highlight' can apply to any of the color channels. For most 'normal' scenes and subjects, the individual red green and blue channels have similar exposure levels, as a result, highlights usually look whitish, as does direct light. If an image is sufficiently overexposed, all the radiance channels will be clipped, and thus with red, blue and green channels all recording as 255, overexposed highlights look white.

I don't know the photoshop menus, but most of the ways to display histograms will also give you the option to view individual color channels, instead of the value, you can see how the individual curves either correlate or vary by subject matter. For images with clipped highlights or blown out backgrounds the y axis on the histogram will be dominated by the blown out values. You can change the histogram to logarithmic, but be aware that this will make even minor accents look dominant in the histogram values, you need to pay attention to subtle changes in the shape of the top of the curve then. (if you have a histogram viewer in your browser plugins, the thumbnails in the voting gallery will let you right click them and see the histograms- the ones dominated by large expanses of bright background don't work so well, but for the others you can get a clear histogram)

Breaking pedalgirl's post down:

1) "that there is little contrast"- most of the radiance values are similar to each other (looking either at the overall integrated value of each pixel, or at individual channels), on a histogram this would look like all the pixel values clumping together, av single hill, while a high contrast image would have bimodal distribution of two widely separated hills on the histogram. (see Rteests entry for a low contrast image -it's black and white, but it doesn't have to be black and white to achieve this effect- the darkest values are minor accents)

2) "the histogram is shifted to the right"- most of the radiance values are in the higher end, above middle gray, above middle pink, above grass green, above early morning sky blue. (see KDOTaylors entry -its colorful, but highly radiant)

3) "The majority of the tones lie in the highlights"- the hill on the histogram peaks towards the right, or the whole histogram is shifted towards 255, it's not really hugging the middle of the graph. This is mostly a reiteration of point 2, but emphasizing that the histogram is moving away from 127, you don't want most of the values sitting at 135, you want them bright and radiant. ( A good example is the sign in pedalgirl's entry, or lkbart's image.)

4) "minimal tonal range"- this is a subset of point 1- you could have smooth gradient from 0 to 255 in any color channel or value channel and there would be few contrasting edges, but you'd have a wide tonal range. It's also a subset of points 2 and 3, a minimal tonal range histogram would look like a hill, instead of a wide plateau, but points 2 and 3 specify that the hill is shifted to the right. (see sapphires image or CBBR- the puppy has dark dark eyes, and there some deep blues in the flowers, but they are minor contributors, and serve as accents within the subject matter).

helpful?

kds1 · June 26, 2012

And you can also apply a high key effect in processing, as in Color Efex Pro's high key.

coldclimb · June 26, 2012

The way I understand it is that the "Key" is not referring to the "key light" as we, being photographers, naturally infer, but to a term called "lighting key" which refers to the angles, colors, and powers of the various lights in the setup as a whole. It was described and made best sense to me as being a term to reference the RATIO of the strength of the lights you are using. A high key being a ratio of 1:1 between two main lighting elements, and a low key being a smaller ratio, like 1:20. Thus, a high key will generate smooth and even lighting with few shadows, and a low key will be deeply contrasted.

dnie · June 26, 2012

Jenn wrote: »

So does that mean just black and white? If so ... I missed it totally.

Hi Jenn,

I'm not sure how much you know, if any, about histograms. I know it took me awhile to understand it (if I do now), because they were never explained to me in a way that clicked. If you don't, check out these links if you have time. It might help some for future reference. It isn't something that will just help with the High Key photos, but if you understand then it can help with your overall understanding of your images.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/histograms.htm
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/histograms1.htm

PedalGirl · June 27, 2012

This is the histogram for my entry.... just for shits and giggles...

kwickers · June 27, 2012

Interesting Challenge. I voted. Keith

Jenn · June 27, 2012

Thanks for all the info from everyone about histograms. The histogram box in my Photoshop is just a small square box that lets me choose the channel: luminosity, colors, red, green, blue, rgb , and it gives this info at the bottom below the graphic image: mean, std dev, median, pixels ... It depends which channel I select as far as what the graph shows.

High Key just looks to me to be a high contrast image with a white background, even though I saw some images with a black background called high key too.

JC · June 27, 2012

Jenn wrote: »

Thanks for all the info from everyone about histograms. The histogram box in my Photoshop is just a small square box that lets me choose the channel: luminosity, colors, red, green, blue, rgb , and it gives this info at the bottom below the graphic image: mean, std dev, median, pixels ... It depends which channel I select as far as what the graph shows.

High Key just looks to me to be a high contrast image with a white background, even though I saw some images with a black background called high key too.

Remember, it's all interpretation, and anyone can call their images whatever they want, and the signal to noise ratio on the internet can be pretty low- i.e. anyone can make a webpage (or a forum post

and put forth their understanding.

High key doesn't have to have a white background, a lot of product photography is high key, and they go with white backgrounds usually, as does a lot of portraiture. But it's not a necessary requirement- it's an easy way to fill the frame with high tonal values though. Can I post links here? here's a high key image without a white background.

http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/ersler/ersler1003/ersler100300122/6540749-high-key-portrait-of-young-beautiful-woman-on-color-background.jpg

I'm not sure why you still think a high key image is the same as high contrast. A high contrast image will have lots of deep dark tones. Light gray against white, pink against white, blue against white have a hue variation, but unless it's dark gray on white, navy blue on white, blood red on white, it isn't high contrast.

Do you get the difference between hue and value? The kind of contrast that we are talking about here is value contrast, not contrasting hues. You can put a blue pixel and a yellow pixel side by side and they may have contrasting hues, but if they both have a value of 200, then in terms of value (ie. lightness versus darkness) they don't have great contrast.

You can have a very colorful image, but in which all the colors are on the light end of the spectrum, and have it still be high key.

This guy probably explains it better:

http://lumitouch.com/benstudiotutorial/LightPoseGuide9.html

Jenn · June 27, 2012

kolibri wrote: »

You can have a very colorful image, but in which all the colors are on the light end of the spectrum, and have it still be high key.

This guy probably explains it better:

http://lumitouch.com/benstudiotutorial/LightPoseGuide9.html

Thanks for all the info ... I'll pay more attention to the histogram next time. I'm thinking I don't really like many high key pictures because they don't have much color in them, although I did like the guys photo of the bride with the flowers.

JC · June 27, 2012

Jenn wrote: »

Thanks for all the info ... I'll pay more attention to the histogram next time. I'm thinking I don't really like many high key pictures because they don't have much color in them, although I did like the guys photo of the bride with the flowers.

How about this shot? I really liked this challenge- it has especially helped me to see landscapes in a new way, even though I didn't work with them. I always read about a dramatic image needing a wide tonal range, but what I've read about during this challenge is making me re-think that.

I'm not saying this is the best example, but it's one I have, that I'm taking a new look at now, I kept trying to process it to make a more dramatic range, even though it was shot mid-day with few shadows and a lot of dust haze and smoke in the distance. Now I'm thinking that I was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and I should embrace the high key.

DonRicklin · June 27, 2012

Jeffro wrote: »

I haven't been able to participate lately, but I managed to stop in and vote this round. Good luck everyone.

Ditto

Don

JC · June 27, 2012

Jenn wrote: »

Thanks for all the info ... I'll pay more attention to the histogram next time. I'm thinking I don't really like many high key pictures because they don't have much color in them, although I did like the guys photo of the bride with the flowers.

How about this shot? I really liked this challenge- it has especially helped me to see landscapes in a new way, even though I didn't work with them. I always read about a dramatic image needing a wide tonal range, but what I've read about during this challenge is making me re-think that.

I'm not saying this is the best example, but it's one I have, that I'm taking a new look at now, I kept trying to process it to make a more dramatic range, even though it was shot mid-day with few shadows and a lot of dust haze and smoke in the distance. Now I'm thinking that I was trying to fit a square peg into a round hole, and I should embrace the high key.

and the histogram

Jenn · June 27, 2012

kolibri wrote: »

How about this shot? I really liked this challenge-<snip>

and the histogram

It's a nice example for me to see and compare what you're describing. My histogram box in my photoshop doesn't have the 0 ^ ^ 255 bar on it tho .. it has the graph and the text below the graph like yours and the value it's measuring in the top drop down. At least I can see the Mean number and what the graph is supposed to look like. Thanks!

travelways · June 27, 2012

JAG wrote: »

high-key
adj (Miscellaneous Technologies / Photography) (of a photograph, painting, etc.) having a predominance of light grey tones or light colours.

Yeah,... "one of the important aspect of the highkey scenario is a low contrast on the subject ", as I learned in the the High-Key assignment (on Dgrin, leaded by Nicolai).

Here is the link to High-Key assignment I participated in:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=115611

I finally passed the test, with this image, with comments on the shadows that shouldn't have been there:
(A high-key image consists primarily of light tones, without dark shadows.)

What I mainly see in the challenges gallery are photos with strong contrast and a lot of black, against an almost unrealistic white background.

Based on the information above, there are only few entries that qualify as high-key images, and I'll post my comments on them (hopefully tomorrow). This doesn't mean that I really know what a high-key image should look like...

rteest42 · June 28, 2012

Interesting how much convo is going on now, after the challenge closed.... I actually posted a little blog with my high key choices; it may be interesting to some...I didn't get into technicality---despite all the technology around me with LR and such, I am not a technical shooter. Possibly a bad thing, but I shoot from my gut, or my heart... While knowledge of a thing is truly an important part, the other, the emotional part, is what generally gets me.
JMHO...
http://rteest42.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/high-key/

sapphire73 · June 28, 2012

I have put off voting until I could read more about high key photography but with the variety of interpretations and the examples Joyce posted (that include some subjects with dark tones), my parameters for what qualifies as high key (for the purpose of my voting) will be relatively broad.

Tatiana, I really appreciate your sharing this link to Nicolai's high key assignment. I have done several of Nicolai's assignments in the past but missed this one, and the information is very helpful.

Appreciate all the comments folks are making to help everyone explore this topic further!

Gretchen

photo-funtasia wrote: »

Yeah,... "one of the important aspect of the highkey scenario is a low contrast on the subject ", as I learned in the the High-Key assignment (on Dgrin, leaded by Nicolai).

Here is the link to High-Key assignment I participated in:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=115611

I finally passed the test, with this image, with comments on the shadows that shouldn't have been there:
(A high-key image consists primarily of light tones, without dark shadows.)

What I mainly see in the challenges gallery are photos with strong contrast and a lot of black, against an almost unrealistic white background.

Based on the information above, there are only few entries that qualify as high-key images, and I'll post my comments on them (hopefully tomorrow). This doesn't mean that I really know what a high-key image should look like...

JAG · June 29, 2012

Congratulations to rteest42 and cbbr!

rteest42 - Innocence

cbbr - High Key Puppy

We have a tie for the first placing, so that means another 24 hour voting poll will go up between rteest42 and cbbr to decide first and second places! A very close round this time!

Awesome round everyone!

The following photographers are now qualified to participate in Mega Challenge #17.

rteest42
cbbr
cromwell
PedalGirl
RevLinePhoto

Congrates to all the top 5 and to those who participated and commented a big thank you!
Winning PM's will be sent out ASAP after the poll closes for first and second.

WhatSheSaw · June 29, 2012

Congrats to the Mega qualifiers! Well done!

Kudos to Cbbr and rteest42! Both top notch photos!

sweetharmony · June 29, 2012

Been a while since we had a vote-off! Congrats to the top 6! I've enjoyed the conversation over this topic.

cbbr · June 29, 2012

Congrats to rteest42 and all of the other winners and thanks for the votes! So now its the ultimate battle right - Puppy V Baby -

rteest42 · June 29, 2012

Yup, Cbbr...Baby Vs. Puppy.... lol....

Congrates to all our winners! DSS Challenge #105 High Key

Vote for the top 10 photos in DSS Challenge #105 High Key 275 votes

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