Talk:High-key lighting

"High key" in the traditional visual arts is different from "high key lighting"
The term "high key" in art predates cinema (and, for that matter, artificial lighting), and refers to something actually quite different. This article needs to make a distinction between "high key lighting" and the older (but still used) term "high key" in painting and photography. See http://photo.stackexchange.com/q/10232/1943 original research by me, but with a lot of references] for the research and conclusions. There should be a "not to be confused with" at the top of the page. Matthew Miller (talk) 13:04, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Merge proposal with High key
This article is much more detailed. Jan Winnicki  *  01:42, 9 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Support: High key is effectively a stub, and its title probably fails WP:NAME for being rare except in the most intensive industry contexts.  —EncMstr (talk) 17:26, 10 January 2012 (UTC)


 * No no no: These are entirely different concepts which happen to share a name and are both used in the visual arts, but have a totally different history and give a totally different effect. What you are suggesting is like merging the Marc Reagan article into Ronald Reagan because the latter article is more extensive. Additionally, while "high key lighting" may be related to "industry contexts", high key in art effectively predates "industry" entirely. Please read the Stack Exchange article linked above for extensive references for this. It's my original research so it's not a good basis for a Wikipedia article, but the references are there if you feel like being helpful. Matthew Miller (talk) 15:26, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

A key reference to help understand the difference between high key and high key lighting
Introduction to Media Production: The Path to Digital Media Production By Robert B. Musburger, Gorham Kindem: The terms low-key and high-key lighting originated in the studio eras of feature film production in Hollywood. They seem counterintuitive — that is, the terms mean the opposite of what we think they should mean. Low-key lighting refers to the minimal use of fill light — that is, a relatively high key-to-fill ratio. This kind of lighting creates pools of light and rather harsh shadows. [...] Low-key lighting evokes a rather heavy and serious mood or feeling that enhances the emotional atmosphere of certain types of films. Low key lighting is similar to an effect in painting known as chiaroscuro. [...] High-key lighting presents a brightly lit scene with few shadow areas. [...] The light, happy atmosphere simulated by high-key lighting contrasts with the somber, mysterious, or threatening atmosphere of low-key lighting.

This is important because this "counterintuitive" meaning is unique to the lighting terms. The traditional terms in art, on the other hand, mean what they say. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattdm (talk • contribs) 15:38, 17 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I think the source is saying the exact opposite: It says that high-key and high-key lighting are actually identical. The only reason why some people on this talkpage seem to be entirely misreading the source(s) is because the source(s) are talking about both painting and photography. While the sources are actually saying that the lighting style in photography and cinema is directly derived from paintings, some people on this talkpage read that entirely wrong and think that there would be two different things: A style for painting and a style for photography and cinema that wouldn't have anything to do with each other, although the sources are actually saying it's all the exact same thing as such that the lighting style for photography is directly derived from paintings.


 * Anyways, I came here for another reason: This article as well as Low-key lighting badly need to refer to Hard and soft light, as all these terms are closely related, but not the same, and many people keep confusing them. The way I see it, hard lighting was very commonplace in Hollywood up until the 1970s when more shady compositions became en vogue (also in relation to growing sensitivity of film stocks allowing for more shady, nuanced reproduction), and today, many people confuse that old hard lighting style in Hollywood for high-key.


 * The difference between classical hard-lighting and high-key lighting is that hard lighting gives hard, sharply-defined shadows and bright lighted areas, whereas high-key lighting is a rather recent, surreal or unrealistic style that aims to eliminate all shadows, akin to overexposure (in analogue photography, that same thing is also a recent trend called "pastel colors" or "pastel shadows", where the overexposure reserve of analogue films is used to make the colors "pop" a bit more). You can see that rather new, unrealistic style in the photo example in this High-key lighting article, for example. Classical Hollywood used hard lighting instead (also because of the lower sensitivity of film stocks, where the only real alternative or additional option was to use softening lenses or softening filters on lenses that didn't really change the contrast and just made the image and especially bright areas a bit hazy and blurry), whereas high-key lighting is a rather recent, unrealistic innovation. --2003:EF:1702:2719:9DF0:D5FC:348E:6E16 (talk) 07:05, 23 January 2022 (UTC)