Optimally illuminate the green screen - how it works

In order for a green screen to work properly, you have to illuminate it optimally. In this article, we show you how this works and what you need to consider.

Prepare the green screen

Before you take care of the lighting of the green screen, there are a few things to consider.

• The fabric should be hung as wrinkle-free as possible. Make sure that it is stretched as tight as possible.
• Special rails and clamps are suitable for this.
• Also pay attention to good fabric quality. If the green screen is fluffing after unpacking, you won't have much fun with it.

How to illuminate a green screen

Ideally, you illuminate the entire scene with 5 lamps. We will explain why below.

• So that everything looks clean and the keying works without any problems, both the green screen and the object must be properly illuminated.
• Set up two lamps so that they stand behind the object and illuminate the green screen at an angle.
• The so-called head light is directed at the object from diagonally above and from behind. For example, a person's hair can stand out better from the green screen.
• Place the remaining two lamps on the left and right of the camera.
• A lamp is the so-called guide light. This is the light source that illuminates the entire scene.
• The other light is the fill light. Ideally, you should place this on the other side of the guide light so that it can illuminate this side. The fill light should be both smaller and less bright than the guide light.
• You can also understand this in our sketch.
• If you have less money available, a combination of guide, fill and head lights is enough. In many cases, for example for live streams, this is already sufficient.

Choosing the right illuminant

In addition to the arrangement of the lamps, the choice of lamps is crucial.

• It is not uncommon for the result to be moderately satisfactory because the wrong lamps are used.
• With the illuminants you should make sure that they have a color temperature between 5.700K and 5.800K. It comes very close to sunlight and looks the most natural.
• You can find many sets for almost every budget on the Internet.
• We also recommend that you always use soft boxes instead of spots. These illuminate the scene more evenly and softer.

We will show you in another article how the green screen works with Photoshop.