Light and Shadow

[trim tree]

Lighting affects the mood of your art! Did you ever see a well-lit haunted house? Bright lights create a bright mood, strong contrasts create drama.

Here are examples of lighting cues you can add to almost any subject to adjust the mood. For this tip we will use simple prompts that vary the lighting on a pumpkin.

• Dramatic lighting, rim lighting, and backlighting produce similar effects, but each with distinctive properties.
• You can describe the shadows, not the light, such as “a pumpkin. deep shadows” or “a pumpkin casting a long shadow”.
• To establish a color theme around the pumpkin you can use a photographic term, “gel lighting”, which affects the color of the light falling on the scene, such as “a pumpkin. purple gel lighting”.
• You can establish a lighting theme for a setting by giving a time of day, as in “a pumpkin in a window at sundown”.

Be careful when describing settings, because everything you mention will become a goal for the AI, which can reduce focus on your main subject.

Your pumpkins may look like they are having fun if you use words like “cheerful” or “on a party table” in your prompt, even if you meant to direct just the lighting and the setting. This is because the language model that produces the art is not perfect at allocating adjectives to multiple objects in a scene.

The setting can work with the lighting to produce interesting changes in the pumpkin based on associations in the training data. You may find that your pumpkin becomes a Jack O’Lantern with some lighting, for example.

Here are the prompts used to produce the images in this tip:

-- a pumpkin. cheerful lighting on a party table.
-- a pumpkin. casting a long shadow in a field.
-- a pumpkin. dramatic lighting.
-- a pumpkin. purple gel lighting.

All the images in this tip were made with Bing Image Creator. For more examples of lighting effects using the DALL-E 2.0 model see Prompt Tip 11:
https://discord.com/channels/974519864045756446/1025254413905961101

[tight cedar]

Light is sparse deep in the ocean. Where we are used to night and day, much aquatic life lives in twillight or the deepest of the night under the sea. The sparse light we have at night seems blinding to some. The darker the shadows, the less light you need for a bright day.

To get better contrast I sometimes use "(dis)play of light and dark".

On the edge between water and air of a tranquil lake we can see a beautiful display of light and dark. Where sunrays shine merrily through the clouds, they illuminate the tranquil aquatic life below.
Bing image creator

[cobalt vapor]

🎦 Cinema
Cinema, particularly the German Expressionist movement of the 1920s, used light to create disturbing, highly stylized atmospheres. In Nosferatu the Vampire (1922) by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, the vampire is represented in the form of a shadow.
This expressiveness will mark the art of lighting in cinema worldwide, giving rise in the 1930s to “poetic realism” in France and “American neo-expressionism” (fantasy films, film noirs 1941-1958) to finally permeate numerous cinematographic genres and subgenres and TV series up to the present day...

📷 Photography
Light is the essential element of a photograph, but shadow is just as important in the success of an image.
It allows you to add depth, texture, shapes, contrast and contributes to the balance of the composition.
The light and shadow photo technique uses lighting to create patterns, shapes, silhouettes and transform the image. Light and shadows can add a lot to a photo and it's important to understand their importance and how to use them...

🔤 Prompt 1:
An Art Deco styled photographic poster featuring a captivating actress with only her eyes in vibrant blue color. The image evokes the feel of ILFORD HP5 PLUS 400 format 135 film with ISO400 sensitivity, inspired by Harcourt Studios. The stark contrast and interplay of light and shadow emphasize the blue of her eyes, adding a touch of mystery and emotion.

🔤 Prompt 2, 3:
A high-quality Art Deco photographic poster of a stunning actress, reminiscent of Harcourt Studios. The image is inspired by color film ILFORD HP5 PLUS 400 format 135 with ISO400 sensitivity. The dramatic contrast emphasizes her eye color, while striking light and shadow effects evoke a sense of mystery and emotion.

DALL.E via Bing Image Creator

[unborn relic]

Chiaroscuro (literally meaning "light-dark" in Italian) is an artistic technique that uses strong contrast between light and dark to emphasize depth, three-dimensionality, and strong emotions. Chiaroscuro techniques began during the Renaissance era, with prominent traditional examples being made by Rembrandt and Caravaggio. While it is rooted in traditional painting, chiaroscuro techniques are also commonly seen now in photography, cinema, and even digital art. What other places have you noticed the implementation chiaroscuro?

Try emphasizing the interaction of light sources and directionality, resulting shadows, and moods to harness the power of Chiaroscuro when crafting a prompt.

Prompt 1: "Oil painting of a still life setup with fruits and a vase, where a strong light from the left casts deep shadows to the right. Chiaroscuro technique."
Prompt 2: "Watercolor painting of a forest scene with sunlight streaming from the front in through the trees, creating a comforting dappled light and shadow effect on the forest floor, reminiscent of Chiaroscuro."
Prompt 3: "Oil painting of an elderly woman, with light falling on her from above, casting dramatic shadows below her aged features."
Prompt 4: "Sepia-toned pencil drawing of a child holding a lantern. The light casts shadows upward on the child's face, highlighting its youthful features."
(Bing's Image Creator)

[cobalt vapor]

Shadow Art is a type of sculptural art that uses shadows to create an artistic effect. The 2D shadows are cast by 3D sculptures and can give rise to a work that is wonderful, inspiring and unnerving!
Using disparate objects, shadow art plays with light and shadow, projecting the works onto a flat surface.

Today much more static and general public, shadow art is intruding into museums or the streets, carried by a handful of artists around the world. And, if the historical rag dolls have been replaced by heterogeneous masses, they all inherit a millennia-old culture of shadows.

Kumi Yamashita is a renowned artist who employs shadow art techniques in her work. She uses a single light source with various, specifically-placed everyday objects to attain striking silhouettes.

🚥 Shadow Art is also colored shadows.
This is what I experimented with by creating images with colored shadows and the result really appealed to me... I found it very pretty... in my eyes.

🔤 Prompt 1, 2 : Photo of a chic family of small dinosaurs visiting an art exhibit. They stand in front of a wall, casting vibrant, colored shadows of themselves. They wear elegant outfits crafted from plants in shades of green, orange, red, yellow, and purple. The wall also displays the partially colored shadows of raised plants, a clear blue sky, and a radiant sun, highlighting the play of light and shadow.

🔤 Prompt 3, 4 : A large family visits an artist exhibition, placing viewers at the center of Shadow Art. It is they, as visitors to the installation, who project their own colored shadows on the wall in front of them. They are dressed in elegant and beautiful outfits, made from plants in shades of green, orange, red, yellow and purple. Adding to their beautiful shadows on the wall are the partially colored shadows of embossed plants, a clear blue sky and a bright sun.

DALL.E via Bing Image Creator

[zealous anchor]

When I first heard of Dall-e a little over a year ago, I was watching a researcher on YouTube who deals with simulations, some regarding light, which is notoriously hard to simulate. More specifically, caustics, which is light patterns caused by reflection/refraction. IIRC, even then, he said the images recreate caustics very well. From Dall-e v3.

Prompt 1: Illustration showcasing various examples of light caustics: patterns created by light refracted through rippling water onto a pool floor, light filtering through a glass object projecting intricate designs onto a table, and sun rays piercing through tree leaves producing dappled light on the ground.

2: Artwork depicting multiple scenarios of light caustics: sunlight creating shimmering patterns on a sandy seabed as it passes through ocean waves, light beams casting colorful caustic designs through a crystal vase, and the play of light and shadow on a wall from a decorative glass window.

3: Drawing that demonstrates different light caustic effects: the dance of light on a wall from sunlight filtering through a water-filled fishbowl, the vibrant patterns formed on a surface when light shines through textured glass, and the dynamic interplay of light and water in a fountain.

4: Photo-realistic image capturing the beauty of light caustics: the mesmerizing patterns on the bottom of a swimming pool on a sunny day, the artful designs formed on a wooden floor when sunlight filters through a glass of water, and the shadowy patterns on a pathway from light passing through rustling leaves.

[tight cedar]

Impasto: It refers to the technique of applying thick layers of paint to create texture and capture the play of light and shadow. Artists like Van Gogh used impasto to bring depth and emotion to their paintings.

Thick impasto technique used to craft an image of a hallway overpowered by nature. Pillars stand tall, their bases surrounded by foliage. Sunlight filters in between the pillars, casting bright patches on the floor and walls.
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