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Understanding Gradient Lighting for Glossy Objects

Visual Education explains how a graduated light source gives a glossy object its sense of form, and how to build that gradient deliberately.

Visual Education · 9 min · Intermediate · LGT · Lighting · 2023

What you take away

Feather your light across a glossy surface to create a gradient rather than a flat hotspot.

Watch it

Filed under

Films to study for light

Books on lighting

Kit for this lesson

Aputure Lantern 90 — Soft from every direction — ambience in one piece
DoPchoice Snapbag Octa — Opens like an umbrella — the rental standard softbox
Nanlite PavoSlim 60C — A thin RGB panel for tight rooms
Nanlite Compac 200B — A cheap, big, soft panel
Canon RF 50mm F1.2 L USM — The portrait-adjacent normal
Viltrox AF 56mm F1.2 LAB — The APS-C portrait prime that embarrassed the brands

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