# Gels for sunset portrait



## lennon33x

I'm doing a shoot of one of my friends family this weekend. We are doing it at sunset, so I've been working on white balance. Yesterday right at sunset, I used a cto gel and it made the subject too warm in comparison to the actual sunset itself. How do I correct this? Do I use a different color gel? If so, what color do you recommend? I have a plethora of gels for my speedlines and I also have a gold and black reflective umbrella. Any help is appreciated.

thanks


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## tirediron

Shoot bare flash, no gel required unless you're after a specific effect. Bring a white/grey target and shoot that before, during and last, correct WB in post.


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## cgipson1

^^^This! If you gel for the sunset.... you are going to change color on the subjects... don't want that. Flash is just for fill to bring the subjects exposure up just a little brighter than the sunset. Makes for "pop", good sharp images, and a slight underexposure on the sunset will enhance the color immensely!


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## lennon33x

Let me ask this then,

I recently did some shots of a subject using a monolight, right past the point of sunset, yet there were still significant warm colors in the sky. The monolight blew out the subject and the white balance was WAY off. The subject was almost white because of flash. I do have 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and full CTOs. Suggestions


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## cgipson1

reavesce said:


> Let me ask this then,
> 
> I recently did some shots of a subject using a monolight, right past the point of sunset, yet there were still significant warm colors in the sky. The monolight blew out the subject and the white balance was WAY off. The subject was almost white because of flash. I do have 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and full CTOs. Suggestions



You do not need gels! You set your camera to expose for the sunset.... to capture that (slight underexposure is better)! Then you set the flash / monolight to properly expose the subject.... BOOM, nice image! (I would still used a large modifier up close.. but that is me!)


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## lennon33x

cgipson1 said:


> You do not need gels! You set your camera to expose for the sunset.... to capture that (slight underexposure is better)! Then you set the flash / monolight to properly expose the subject.... BOOM, nice image! (I would still used a large modifier up close.. but that is me!)



So, set my WB to either cloudy or shade?


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## cgipson1

reavesce said:


> cgipson1 said:
> 
> 
> 
> You do not need gels! You set your camera to expose for the sunset.... to capture that (slight underexposure is better)! Then you set the flash / monolight to properly expose the subject.... BOOM, nice image! (I would still used a large modifier up close.. but that is me!)
> 
> 
> 
> 
> So, set my WB to either cloudy or shade?
Click to expand...


You could use Cloudy.. all that really does is warm things up a bit... but WHY? Set a custom WB.. using a white or grey card. Much more accurate!


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## Derrel

You stated that you have 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and full CTOs. That's good. There is going to be a significant difference between the color temp for the sunset sky versus the pure white flash from a monolight. If you blast the foreground with "cool" monolight photons, the background is going to look very warm-tned, and the foreground areas will look blatantly obviously flash-filled. Start with the 1/4 CTO and see how that is at one specific flash power level.

I am assuming you are going for a subtle, all-natural appearance, one where the light from the background and the foreground appears to all be of the same color temp, and not 5,000 degrees different...

THis is the ages old color photography concept of balance for the AMBIENT light (with the right kind of film, or in digital, the right WB) and then FILTER for the fill light...


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## slow231

Derrel said:


> You stated that you have 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and full CTOs. That's good. There is going to be a significant difference between the color temp for the sunset sky versus the pure white flash from a monolight. If you blast the foreground with "cool" monolight photons, the background is going to look very warm-tned, and the foreground areas will look blatantly obviously flash-filled. Start with the 1/4 CTO and see how that is at one specific flash power level.
> 
> I am assuming you are going for a subtle, all-natural appearance, one where the light from the background and the foreground appears to all be of the same color temp, and not 5,000 degrees different...
> 
> THis is the ages old color photography concept of balance for the AMBIENT light (with the right kind of film, or in digital, the right WB) and then FILTER for the fill light...



agreed.  i don't know what's up with all this talk is about shooting with a bare flash. sunset colors are not the same as full sunlight/bare flash temp color.  if the full cto was too warm, back off on the cto a bit. keep in mind the colors are going to change rapidly as the sun goes down.  you should be able to get it pretty close though.  if you're a bit off do a masked adjustment layer for WB in post (get the wb for either the subject or background to where you want, then adjust the wb of the other to match).


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## tirediron

Can some please a'splain to me homecomeforwhy you want subjects with orange(ish) skin?


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## Tony S

Probably not looking for orangish skin, but doesn't want the harsh white light in comparison to the background, something just a bit warmer looking.  Daylight/flash balanced light with a sunset lit background just does not look well together.  Try a slight under exposure of the sunset, which will bring out the color in the sky, but run your white balance/color temp up to around 7500-8000K which will warm the light from your flash on the subject giving a more natural sunset looking light without being "really orange".


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## amolitor

No idea what the right gels are, and it will obviously depend on lighting ratios, but gelling is perfectly correct procedure here.

You can correct in post by doing LOCAL adjustments to WB. You can even start from the same raw file, WB for the fill -> output, then WB for the ambient and output a second file. Then blend together with layers and masks in your favorite editing tool.

Charlie is usually the "get it right in camera" drumbeat guy, why is is saying "just do it in post!" now?

Either is possible, of course. With the appropriate color meter you SHOULD be able to get the ambient color temp, and then gel appropriately. It's a moving target, though, so you'll have to meter every couple minutes.


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## lennon33x

Thanks for the input. I'm doing one more test tonight. Can anyone tell me the color temp of the gold/black reflective umbrella?


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## Derrel

tirediron said:
			
		

> Can some please a'splain to me homecomeforwhy you want subjects with orange(ish) skin?



I'll explain my thought process, in light of what the OP originally asked about, which is using fractional CTO gels at sunset on his monolight flash, near sunset, outdoors.

IMHO, there's nothing that looks as fake as 5,000 degree Kelvin, raw, white, electronic flash from a monolight blasting onto a twilight scene, with the lovely, warm glow of the background sky and landscape bathed in warm light...and then that, "Hey, lookit! I'm using off-camera flash to NUKE the foreground with harsh, bright white!"...ummm, I think that looks very garish.

I would rather have ever-so-slightly warm skin tones on a sunset shot than I would cold blue-skin tones. Not saying make the people orange...just warm up the flash a bit with a light CTO. Or...maybe one of those funky gold-colored umbrellas

The same, EXACT issue exists when shooting under fluorescent lighting in a factory; you set the white balance to Fluorescent, but you GEL-adjust the foreground FLASH to match the prevailing light's color temp, and the white balance that has been set for the AMBIENT looks 'normalized".

Same thing when using LED lights for fill outdoors: set the white balance to the AMBIENT light's temp range, then bring in fill light that matches...meaning, set the LED light setup to a white balance coordinate that agrees, or is close to, the one that's appropriate for the ambient light and its WB value range.

Equalizing the foreground light's color temperature with the prevailing ambient light means the file can easily be adjusted a number of ways. Again, the flash power level and the CTO and the ambient exposure need to be controlled; the 1/8 and 1/4 CTO gels are going to simply bring the light "a bit warmer". I do not like the look of sunset skies + daylight fill-flash....looks odd to me.

Mixed lighting can look awful sometimes. The concept of balancing/equalizing the ambient light's color temp with the color temp of the fill light is a pretty time-proven method. One can however, deliberately CONTRAST the WB, and the ambient, like when setting the WB to Tungsten on a cloudy, white-sky day, then gelling the flash with a full CTO, and shooting NEAR-camera people with gelled flash, to create an intensely blue sky, and "normalized" close-in, flash-lighted coloring.


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## jake337

Derrel said:


> tirediron said:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Can some please a'splain to me homecomeforwhy you want subjects with orange(ish) skin?
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'll explain my thought process, in light of what the OP originally asked about, which is using fractional CTO gels at sunset on his monolight flash, near sunset, outdoors.
> 
> IMHO, there's nothing that looks as fake as 5,000 degree Kelvin, raw, white, electronic flash from a monolight blasting onto a twilight scene, with the lovely, warm glow of the background sky and landscape bathed in warm light...and then that, "Hey, lookit! I'm using off-camera flash to NUKE the foreground with harsh, bright white!"...ummm, I think that looks very garish.
> 
> I would rather have ever-so-slightly warm skin tones on a sunset shot than I would cold blue-skin tones. Not saying make the people orange...just warm up the flash a bit with a light CTO. Or...maybe one of those funky gold-colored umbrellas
> 
> The same, EXACT issue exists when shooting under fluorescent lighting in a factory; you set the white balance to Fluorescent, but you GEL-adjust the foreground FLASH to match the prevailing light's color temp, and the white balance that has been set for the AMBIENT looks 'normalized".
> 
> Same thing when using LED lights for fill outdoors: set the white balance to the AMBIENT light's temp range, then bring in fill light that matches...meaning, set the LED light setup to a white balance coordinate that agrees, or is close to, the one that's appropriate for the ambient light and its WB value range.
> 
> Equalizing the foreground light's color temperature with the prevailing ambient light means the file can easily be adjusted a number of ways. Again, the flash power level and the CTO and the ambient exposure need to be controlled; the 1/8 and 1/4 CTO gels are going to simply bring the light "a bit warmer". I do not like the look of sunset skies + daylight fill-flash....looks odd to me.
> 
> Mixed lighting can look awful sometimes. The concept of balancing/equalizing the ambient light's color temp with the color temp of the fill light is a pretty time-proven method. One can however, deliberately CONTRAST the WB, and the ambient, like when setting the WB to Tungsten on a cloudy, white-sky day, then gelling the flash with a full CTO, and shooting NEAR-camera people with gelled flash, to create an intensely blue sky, and "normalized" close-in, flash-lighted coloring.
Click to expand...



So what Derrel is trying to convey is that he likes when they look like this:

Sunset girl 2 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


and not this:

IMG_5062 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


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## tirediron

jake337 said:


> So what Derrel is trying to convey is that he likes when they look like this:
> 
> Sunset girl 2 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
> 
> 
> and not this:
> 
> IMG_5062 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!


Fair enough; when I said 'bare flash' I didn't mean a bare 2200 w/s Speedotron blasted in their face; I was thinking something subtler.  A LOT subtler than the second example.


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## Robin_Usagani

tirediron said:


> Can some please a'splain to me homecomeforwhy you want subjects with orange(ish) skin?


If the subject is warm, you have more room to make the subject cooler, then the background will not be as orange.  I personally wish I had gelled this shot.


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## tirediron

Really?  That's almost exactly the look I would go for.


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## Robin_Usagani

tirediron said:


> Really?  That's almost exactly the look I would go for.



I rather have my subject be a little warmer.  If I made it warmer then my background is even more orange.


Of course now that I have LR4, I can just use WB adjustment brush... but kinda lazy.


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## cgipson1

tirediron said:


> Really?  That's almost exactly the look I would go for.



Yep... me too! But Robin has been a PRO much longer then we have.. what do we know!   <yea.. poking fun... deal with it!>


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## Robin_Usagani

It is pretty simple..  you are at the beach around sunset, what does the light look like touching your skin?  It is warm.  Now you want to introduce a new light source, it would be nice to match that light if you want it natural looking.    That's why people like to use a big ass reflector.  It will just reflect the light at somewhat the same temperature.


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## tirediron

cgipson1 said:


> tirediron said:
> 
> 
> 
> Really? That's almost exactly the look I would go for.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yep... me too! But Robin has been a PRO much longer then we have.. what do we know!  <yea.. poking fun... deal with it!>
Click to expand...

Ouch!


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## Robin_Usagani

I really don't care whether you are a pro or not (and how long).  All I see are good photos and bad photos.


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## lennon33x

It helps to pay attention to the actual color of the sky and the sunset, as I found out tonight. As I was looking, I figured out that the majority of the sunset was blueish. Therefore, I chose to diffuse the monolight without a gel or a black/gold reflective umbrella and just adjusted the WB to shady. It really warmed up the flash. However, I used a speedlite to create a rim light and it was too blue, so I used a 1/4 CTO on it.


This was one of the test shots


also, constructive criticism is much appreciated


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## cynicaster

reavesce said:


> It helps to pay attention to the actual color of the sky and the sunset, as I found out tonight. As I was looking, I figured out that the majority of the sunset was blueish. Therefore, I chose to diffuse the monolight without a gel or a black/gold reflective umbrella and just adjusted the WB to shady. It really warmed up the flash. However, I used a speedlite to create a rim light and it was too blue, so I used a 1/4 CTO on it.
> 
> 
> This was one of the test shots
> 
> 
> also, constructive criticism is much appreciated



I rather like the color balance in this photo, but you seem to have darker skin tones, so I&#8217;m wondering how the same treatment would render a powder-faced mug like mine. 

I&#8217;m no pro, but put me down for a +1 under the &#8220;whitish light on subject against warm sunset background looks like complete ass&#8221; column.  When I glance at a photo and the fill flash leaps off the screen, it&#8217;s kind of a drag.  I don&#8217;t know how anybody could prefer that over a warm light that more closely matches what you&#8217;d actually see in real life, but to each their own I suppose.


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