Treatment of windows

Paul Bruening · February 21, 2007

I've always found it ironic how studio shots will blow windows artificially to create the illusion that they are real windows. All that is considered to be just fine. Then, when on location, great effort is taken to reveal exterior detail in windows. It's like, "whatever is the harder thing to do... do that."

Simon Osaji · March 12

On 2/19/2007 at 10:17 PM, David Mullen ASC said:

If you want to both see a whited-out view and be able to shine light through the window, normally you'd put something white farther away, whether backlit or frontlit, and then have room to shine some lights in from the side of the window.

David, for instance i want to create this mood, shooting from this angle with a single window in the room and also shooting from the angle where i’d be facing the window.

I don’t understand how to make the widows white, I’d be seeing the rest of the dark studio, if I have a large, soft light source positioned farther away and angled to come from the same direction as the image below.

Simon Osaji · March 12

Also, I’d like to have that same blue tone in the shadows as seen here. Do I need to add an additional light source to achieve that effect? If so, where should it be positioned, and what size should it be?

Albion Hockney · March 13

If you want the image to look exactly like this but not see out the windows I'd just lift exposure on the window itself in the color grade.

your essentially saying you like the lighting in the shot, you just want the background out the window too be brighter. if you had a budget you might just take a 12x ultrabounce and throw some light at it out there, but then you will have no texture at all out the window.