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Cheat Sheet Education

Photography Cheat Sheet: How Deeper Blacks Make Sharper Images

Chris Gampat
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04/27/2020
3 Mins read
Sharper-Images-with-Deeper-Blacks-by-the-Phoblographer

We’re sure that many of you didn’t know the trick in this photography cheat sheet.

You’ve heard of clarity, sharpness, and toning for sharper images–but have you ever thought about deeper blacks? This is a secret that I learned years ago and that I continue to notice in images across the web. Those who love making their photos black and white probably have heard of this before and started incorporating it into their workflows. Getting deeper blacks is admittedly easier to do in post-production, but there are ways to do it in-camera using exposure tricks. It starts with having control over your lighting–which is a method that begins in-camera. But luckily, this technique applies to any situation you could possibly think of, though we’ve seen it done best with low key lighting.

“Low key lighting is specifically used in storytelling to draw a subject’s eye to a particular part of a scene. That’s how it works in cinema but it can be applied to photography for sure.”

– Getting Sharper Looking Portrait Photos Using Low Key Lighting

At its root, the idea behind the more profound blacks technique has to do with the spotlight effect. Think about a subject on a stage at a play and consider how the lights are dimmed. The stagehands and lighting crew typically work to ensure that the lighting is specifically hitting a particular place. If they want you to pay attention to the entire scene, then they light all of it. If someone is having a monologue, then they fade the lights and put a spotlight on that person. The spotlight effect is basically the same thing, but in photography. Some call it low key lighting, but you can also call it a spotlight effect. You’re essentially putting everything that’s not important into darkness and making people focus on the brighter parts of the image. This effect seeps into the micro-level of details.

“The deeper the blacks are in your image, the sharper the eye will perceive them because it focuses more on other areas by default. After this, boost the contrast. Added contrast is nice because it makes a larger difference between the whites and the blacks–which means that your shadows get darker and your highlights get brighter.”

– The Secrets Behind Making Your Images Look Sharper
This is high speed sync: which cuts down on how much ambient light is in a scene

If you were trying to make this effect happen in-camera, you’d shoot with an off-camera light and overpower the ambient lighting so that your continuous light or strobe is emitting the stronger light in the scene. Many photographers have referred to this idea as Overpowering the Sun. And in many ways, that’s precisely what you’re doing. What you need to do is think like a creator and not someone who simply captures. Sometimes, it will mean that you don’t even really have to do any post-production. But if you’re trying to create this effect in post, then also be sure to work with your contrast and shadows. Balance the details of the shadows out.

“The reason for this is because it tends to boost the colors overall and it adds a bigger difference between the brightest brights and the darkest darks by cutting down the overall dynamic range in the scene. When not looking at 100%, it will make your subject pop out more.”

– How to Get Sharper Images Through Proper In-Camera and Post-Production Routines

Our cheat sheets are created using Visme.

blacks contrast deeper blacks in-camera levels lighting Low Key Lighting method overpowering the sun photography cheat sheet post-production
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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