

They also bring out clouds nicely, resulting in more interesting skies. When snapping landscapes a yellow filter darkens the sky slightly, helping to balance its exposure against the darker ground. They're a popular choice for beginners as they can be used in virtually any type of photography.Ī yellow filter gives slightly darkened blues, increasing sky contrast. In some cases the difference is barely noticeable, but it can help to lift a photo just enough.

Yellow filters produce the most subtle effect of the 5 coloured filters. Similarly to red filters, they can be used to reduce the appearance of fog and haze, and to darken skies and emphasise clouds.

When photographing buildings and cityscapes, they give bricks a pleasing tone, and increase contrast between different materials to add depth and texture to the image.
#Bokeh lens sky skin#
In portrait photography, an orange filter reduces the appearance of freckles and blemishes, giving the skin a healthy, smooth look. This makes them a popular general purpose filter.Īn orange filter gives warm, smooth skin tones. Orange filters sit between red and yellow filters, giving a nice balance of each one's properties. This makes them a popular, cheaper alternative to true infrared photography. Red filters produce such an extreme effect that they can make your photo look like it's been shot through an infrared filter. This is particularly useful when shooting red flowers, as they have a similar tone to the surrounding leaves. When shooting plants they help increase definition between flowers and foliage. They're also excellent for increasing visibility in haze and fog. In landscape photography, a red filter will turn a blue sky almost black and make clouds really stand out, giving the scene a dramatic feel. They're often considered too "harsh" for most types of photography, but can be used to produce striking creative effects.Ī red filter gives extreme, dramatic contrast. Red filters produce a very strong effect and greatly increase contrast. This image shows how different filters affect the way colours are converted to black and white:ĭifferent coloured filters (top line) affect your scene's greys in different ways.īecause of their different effects, each colour filter tends to be used in a different way. In black and white photography this means that objects appear as lighter or darker shades of grey. The result is that colours matching the filter colour appear brighter in the final image, while other colours appear darker. For example, a red filter will let red light through, but block most green and blue. Each lets through its own colour of light and blocks other colours to varying degrees. There are 5 filter colours that are commonly used in black and white photography - red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. This allows you to control the way they appear in the final image, ensuring that objects are well separated and clearly defined. This can cause objects in a black and white image to blend into one another, leaving you with a photo which is flat and lifeless, and lacking in contrast and definition.Ĭoloured lens filters offer a solution to this problem because they affect the way colours are "converted" to black and white. For example, some shades of red, green, and blue look completely different in colour, but almost identical in black and white.

A common problem in black and white photography is that certain colours look very similar when converted into greyscale.
