A Guide to Lighting Gels for Photography

Ever wondered how event photographers capture those incredibly rich, cinematic colours? You know the ones – the vibrant party shots or the perfectly balanced portraits that just pop. The secret isn't always some complex editing trick. Often, it's a simple, old-school tool: lighting gels.

These thin, coloured sheets are the unsung heroes of event photography, transforming plain light into a powerful tool for sculpting mood and atmosphere.

Your Secret Weapon for Jaw-Dropping Photos

Think of lighting gels as colour filters for your lights. A musician has different instruments to build a symphony; a photographer has gels to paint a scene with light. And no, they aren't just for high-end studio shoots with A-listers like Jennifer Lopez. For any event hire specialist, they're a practical, almost essential bit of kit.

Whether you're shooting a corporate product launch or an intimate wedding, controlling the colour of light is everything. Gels let you seamlessly match your flash to the ambient light of a room, which is the key to getting natural, flattering skin tones. Or you can go the other way and use them creatively to drench a dance floor in a vibrant wash of colour or add a dramatic flair to a photo booth.

Why Gels are a Must-Have for Events

Event photography is a fast-paced game. You don't have the luxury of spending hours in post-production wrestling with mixed lighting. Gels are your on-the-spot solution, saving you a massive headache later. Getting the colour right in-camera is always, always better than trying to fix it on a computer.

• Create Instant Vibe: Turn a boring conference hall into an immersive brand experience just by adding a few coloured washes of light.
• Fix Awful Lighting: Kill the sickly green cast from fluorescent office lights or balance the overly orange glow from old tungsten lamps.
• Dial in the Mood: Use soft, warm gels for a romantic, candlelit wedding feel, or go bold with saturated colours for a high-energy party atmosphere.

This kind of lighting control is more in demand than you might think. The UK's LED lighting market, which includes the gear we use with gels, pulled in around USD 8,389.9 million. That number is expected to jump to USD 15,123.2 million by 2033 as event planners increasingly demand professional-grade visuals.

The real magic begins when you stop just correcting light and start creating with it. A splash of blue can instantly give a cool, futuristic feel, while a hint of red can inject passion or drama into a scene. It's all about telling a story.

From Great Shot to Masterpiece

While gels do the heavy lifting in-camera, the final polish often happens in post-processing. Nailing the colour on site is the crucial first step, but a little refinement afterwards can elevate a great photo into a true masterpiece. For those looking to fine-tune their images, learning about tools like professional Real Estate Photo Editing Software can be incredibly useful.

Ultimately, lighting gels are your ticket to controlling the visual narrative of an event, ensuring the photos are as memorable as the night itself.

What’s in My Gel Kit? The Only Three Types You’ll Ever Need

Getting started with lighting gels for photography can feel like trying to decipher a secret code. You see endless swatch books with cryptic numbers and names. But honestly? You can ignore most of them.

For creating incredible event photos, you really only need to get your head around three main types. These are the workhorses that will solve 90% of the lighting headaches you'll encounter on any job. Let’s break down what they are and when to use them.

Colour Correction Gels: The Unsung Heroes

First up, and without a doubt the most important gels in my bag, are the colour correction filters. These aren’t about creating wild, artistic effects; they're the problem-solvers. Their entire purpose is to make the light from your flash match the light already in the room, so your photos look natural and skin tones don't look weirdly blue or alien-like.

The two you'll be reaching for constantly are CTO (Colour Temperature Orange) and CTB (Colour Temperature Blue).

• CTO (Colour Temperature Orange): This is your best mate for almost any indoor event. It warms up your flash, giving it an orange tint that perfectly mimics the cosy glow from tungsten bulbs, chandeliers, and lamps you find in most wedding venues and hotels. Without it, your flash’s clean white light clashes with the warm ambient light, making people look ghostly and washed out.
• CTB (Colour Temperature Blue): As you've probably guessed, this does the exact opposite. It cools down your flash with a blue tint, helping it blend in with natural daylight. It’s a lifesaver for corporate gigs in rooms full of windows or for balancing your flash with the cool, soft light of an overcast day.

Getting comfortable with CTO and CTB gels is the biggest leap you can make towards that polished, professional look where your flash becomes completely invisible. The goal is for your subjects to look like they're just naturally lit by beautiful light, not blasted by a flashgun.

Colour Effect Gels: The Fun Stuff

Right, now for the creative part. Colour effect gels are where you get to play and add some serious drama. These are your vibrant sheets of red, blue, green, purple, and magenta that let you literally paint a room with light. For anyone in the event hire game, this is how you add massive value and completely transform a space.

Think about it. A product launch for a brand whose main colour is a deep blue? Slap some blue gels on your background lights and drench the walls in their brand colour. Instantly, every photo feels bespoke and immersive. Or what about a first dance at a wedding? Bathing the couple in a soft magenta or romantic amber can turn a simple photo into something that feels straight out of a movie. Even top-tier celebrity photographers like David LaChapelle use bold, punchy colours to create those iconic portraits of stars like Dua Lipa.

These gels are your shortcut to setting a mood:

• Red: Shouts energy, passion, and drama.
• Blue: Creates a cool, calm, or even futuristic vibe.
• Magenta/Purple: Adds a touch of luxury, romance, or party-time fun.

Diffusion Gels: The Secret to Flattering Light

Last but not least, we have the subtlest but arguably most critical gel for making people look good: diffusion. These gels aren't coloured at all; they're usually just semi-opaque, frosted white sheets. Their one and only job is to soften your light.

A bare flash is a cruel beast. It spits out harsh, direct light that creates sharp, ugly shadows and shiny hotspots on people's faces. A diffusion gel taped over your flash acts like a cloud passing in front of the sun. It spreads the light out, making the source effectively bigger and wrapping it gently around your subject. The result is that beautiful, soft light you see in portraits by masters like Annie Leibovitz, where skin looks flawless and everyone looks like a star. For a photo booth or any kind of event portraiture, a small square of diffusion is non-negotiable. It just makes everyone look better.

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Before we move on, here's a quick cheat sheet to help you decide which gel to grab from your camera bag.

Quick Guide to Choosing the Right Lighting Gel

Goal	Gel Type to Use	Example Scenario
Make flash blend into a warm, indoor room	CTO (Orange)	A wedding reception in a hotel ballroom with warm tungsten lighting.
Make flash blend in with daylight	CTB (Blue)	A corporate conference in a room with large windows during the day.
Make people's skin look smooth and soft	Diffusion (White)	Setting up a photo booth or taking portraits of guests at an event.
Add a dramatic, moody, or fun colour	Colour Effect	Washing a white wall with a brand's signature blue at a product launch.
Create a romantic or warm atmosphere	Colour Effect (e.g., Pink, Amber)	Lighting the dance floor for the first dance at a wedding.

This table should give you a solid starting point for 99% of the situations you'll find yourself in. Now, let's talk about how to actually attach these things to your lights without them melting

How to Actually Get Gels Onto Your Lights

Alright, you've got your gels. Now for the fun part: getting them to stick to your lights without drooping, melting, or making a dramatic exit mid-shoot. It can feel a bit fiddly at first, but once you get the hang of a few techniques, it becomes pure muscle memory. How you go about it really boils down to what kind of light you’re working with.

Let’s face it, nobody wants to be that person wrestling with sticky tape while a client is waiting. A securely attached gel isn't just a technical detail; it's a mark of professionalism. The last thing you need is a gelled flash plummeting onto the dance floor just as the wedding band kicks into gear.

This little diagram sums up the whole game plan for a lighting gel toolkit, from fixing colour problems to unleashing your creative side.

Essentially, it shows how gels are both a problem-solver and a paintbrush, letting you first correct wonky light and then shape it into something special.

Gelling Your Speedlight (The Run-and-Gun Methods)

Your on-camera flash, the trusty speedlight, is the light you'll be gelling most often at events. Thankfully, they don't get searingly hot, which gives you plenty of quick and easy options.

• The Humble Rubber Band: A classic for a reason. Just hold your pre-cut gel over the flash head and pop a sturdy rubber band around it. It's cheap, fast, and surprisingly solid. A pro tip from someone who's learned the hard way: always carry spares. They will snap at the worst possible time.

• Gaffer Tape: Every photographer's best mate. A tiny strip of gaffer tape on each side of the gel will lock it down. The beauty of gaffer is that it won't leave a sticky, gunky mess on your expensive flash, unlike duct tape. Just watch out you don't tape over any sensors or buttons.

• Dedicated Gel Holders: For a slicker approach, you can grab purpose-built silicone holders that just slip over the head of your flash. They often come with perfectly sized gel inserts, making it a doddle to swap colours in seconds. Think of it as the pro-level upgrade to the rubber band.

Taming the Big Guns: Studio Strobes

Studio strobes, the heavy hitters you'll use for photo booths or formal group shots, throw out a lot more heat than a speedlight. This demands a more serious solution. Trust me, a saggy, melted gel doesn't exactly scream "hire me again" to a client.

Your best bet here is to use the strobe's own modifier mount. Most strobes have a standard reflector dish that comes with little clips designed for holding grids or, you guessed it, gels. You can simply clip a larger sheet of gel right over the front. Easy.

If your reflector is clip-free, heat-resistant tape is your new best friend. This stuff is specifically made to handle higher temperatures. I like to use it to create a little "hinge" on one side of the gel. That way, I can flip it up and down without having to re-tape the whole thing every time I want to tweak something.

And remember, strobes get warm. Always leave a bit of an air gap between the gel and the modelling lamp or flash tube. This lets the heat escape and is the simplest trick I know to avoid a melted plastic catastrophe.

Working with Cool-Running LED Panels

LED panels are the new kids on the block, and frankly, they’ve made our lives with gels so much easier. Their biggest selling point? They generate almost no heat. You can have an LED panel on for hours, and it'll barely be warm to the touch. This low-heat world opens up all sorts of no-fuss attachment methods.

This shift to LED isn't just about convenience; it's a huge deal in the UK, driven by energy-efficiency regulations that have seen old-style halogen bulbs banned. This means modern, gel-friendly LED setups are now the standard you'll find in many UK venues, which is fantastic news for event hire specialists. You can get the full scoop on the UK's LED lighting market and its growth if you're curious.

Since heat is off the table, you can often just use a bit of gaffer tape to stick a gel sheet right onto the frame of the panel. Even better, many new LED panels have built-in filter slots designed to slide gels in and out in a heartbeat. This is an absolute game-changer for event work where you might be shifting the mood from dinner to the dance party. Imagine you're shooting VIPs like Idris Elba at a gala; your gear has to be quick and flawless. Attaching gels to cool-running LEDs makes that a reality.

Nailing Your Camera Settings with Gels

So, you’ve slapped a gel onto your light. Brilliant. But that’s only half the job done. Now you’ve got to tell your camera how to interpret this new, fantastic colour you're blasting into the scene. This is where your camera settings come in, turning what could be a chaotic colour mess into a polished, professional photograph.

Think of it like this: your camera’s brain needs new instructions. If you don't give it any, it'll try to "fix" that beautiful blue or warm orange you’ve just created, fighting your every move. The real magic happens when your camera and your gels start working together as a team.

Cracking the White Balance Code

White Balance (WB) is simply the setting that tells your camera how to see colour. Its day job is to make sure white things look, well, white, no matter what kind of light they're under. But when you’re using lighting gels for photography, you can bend this setting to your will to get two very different results.

For Corrective Gels (CTO & CTB)

Right, so you've put a CTO gel on your flash to match those warm, tungsten lights in a venue. Your goal here is perfect, natural-looking skin tones. The trick is to tell your camera what "white" should look like after your flash has been warmed up by the gel.

• Set a Custom White Balance: Most cameras have this feature. Pop a neutral grey or white card where your subject will be and take a quick photo of it with your gelled flash firing.
• Tell Your Camera "This is White": Dive into your camera's menu and select that photo as your new white balance reference. Bingo. Your camera now knows that the slightly orange light is the new normal, so it renders skin tones beautifully and accurately.

This one step makes your flash blend in so seamlessly that your photos look naturally lit and high-end. We're talking Zendaya on a Vanity Fair cover level of polish.

For Creative Gels (Reds, Blues, Purples)

When you’re painting a backdrop with a rich, vibrant colour, you want it to be as punchy and saturated as possible. The strategy here is the polar opposite. You don't want the camera to "correct" the colour; you want it to scream it from the rooftops.

The simplest trick in the book? Just set your camera’s White Balance to Daylight or Flash. These presets assume a neutral, white light source. So, when your camera sees a blast of intense blue, it records it as intensely blue. Your creative colours will pop just the way you imagined.

The Exposure Triangle vs. Gelled Light

Your trusty exposure settings—aperture, shutter speed, and ISO—have a massive role to play here, too. Gels, especially the dark, moody ones, eat up a surprising amount of light. That deep blue gel you love can easily slash your light output by two or three stops.

So, you’ll need to compensate:

• Boost Your ISO: Don't be afraid to nudge your ISO a bit higher than usual. This makes your camera more sensitive to the now-dimmer light.
• Open Your Aperture: A wider aperture (a lower f-number like f/2.8) lets more of that delicious gelled light hit your sensor.
• Crank Up the Flash: If your flash or strobe has power to spare, just turn it up to push more light through the gel.

Learning how light interacts with different surfaces is a skill that translates across many areas of photography. For instance, the principles of managing reflections and controlling light intensity you'd use if you were learning how to photograph jewelry apply directly to working with gels. It's all about mastering light.

Once you get a handle on these settings, you stop just using gels and start truly controlling them. You can decide to freeze the action on a packed dance floor with a fast shutter speed or create moody, dramatic portraits by carefully balancing your gelled key light against the ambient darkness. It’s this technical control that really unlocks your creative freedom.

Creative Lighting Setups to Inspire You

Right, let's get to the good stuff. The theory is essential, but seeing what lighting gels for photography can actually do to a room is where the magic happens. Think of this as your personal playbook—a collection of tried-and-tested setups you can steal for your next event. No more guesswork, just practical ideas to take your photos from 'nice' to 'unforgettable'.

We're moving past simple colour correction and diving headfirst into creating atmosphere, telling a story, and adding that 'wow' factor that gets you booked again and again.

The Brand Colour Wash

This is my go-to trick for corporate gigs and product launches. You want to wrap guests in the brand's identity the second they walk through the door. It's an incredibly simple but powerful technique that makes every photo look like it was commissioned specifically for the company.

The setup is ridiculously easy:

• Figure out the brand’s main colour. Is it the deep blue of a tech firm or the earthy green of an eco-brand?
• Grab a couple of spare lights—speedlights or small LEDs are perfect.
• Slap a gel matching that brand colour onto each light.
• Pop the lights on the floor and aim them up at plain walls, pillars, or the entrance.

Just like that, a bland hotel conference room has an identity. Every photo snapped against that backdrop instantly screams brand, and it takes next to no effort to pull off.

Creating the Romantic Dance Floor Glow

Shooting a wedding? A harsh, sterile white light on the dance floor during the first dance is a total mood-killer. You're aiming for warm, intimate, and magical.

To nail this, reach for a soft, warm gel. A gentle pink, a dreamy magenta, or a classic warm amber all work beautifully. Stick a gelled light on a stand, get it up high, and point it down at the centre of the dance floor.

What you get is a gorgeous pool of soft, romantic colour that bathes the couple as they have their moment. It creates a beautiful spotlight, makes them pop from the background, and gives the photos a cinematic, high-end feel. It’s a five-second setup that makes a world of difference.

The Dynamic Two-Tone Background

You’ve seen this look everywhere, from music videos to high-fashion portraits. Think of the vibrant, colourful backdrops in shoots with artists like Taylor Swift or Beyoncé. It looks complex, but it's just two coloured gels playing nicely together. This is a killer setup for a photo booth or a dedicated portrait station at an event.

Here’s how you do it:

1. Set up two lights, one on either side of your background, pointing towards the middle.
2. Pop a different but complementary coloured gel on each one. A classic combo is a cool blue on one side and a hot magenta or red on the other.
3. Let the light beams meet and blend in the centre. This creates a stunning colour gradient that adds instant depth and visual punch.

Keep your main light on the subject clean and white, which will make them stand out against that incredible backdrop. It's a guaranteed showstopper that makes guests feel like they’re in a proper photoshoot.

Quick tip for this one: make sure your subject is standing a good few feet away from the background. You want that beautiful coloured light hitting the wall, not spilling all over their face and hair.

The Coloured Rim Light for Dramatic Portraits

This is a classic studio trick for creating edgy, dramatic portraits that demand attention. A rim light (or 'kicker') is a light placed behind your subject that points back towards your camera. Its job is to trace a thin, bright outline around their hair and shoulders, separating them from the dark background.

Now, what happens when you add colour to that light?

By gelling your rim light, you can trace your subject’s silhouette in a vibrant hue. A deep blue can feel moody and futuristic, while a sharp red adds a punch of power and energy. You've definitely seen this on posters for action heroes like Chris Hemsworth to give them that larger-than-life feel.

This technique is brilliant in darker event spaces. You can create incredible, studio-quality portraits with just your main light and one small, gelled light tucked behind the guest. It’s a fantastic way to add a premium service to your event photography package.

Your Top Questions About Lighting Gels, Answered

Alright, let's get into the nitty-gritty. Once you start playing with gels, a bunch of little questions always pop up, usually when you're in the middle of a shoot. It's totally normal. Getting these sorted is what separates the pros from the amateurs.

Think of it like this: knowing your gear inside and out is your red carpet moment. You want to be a George Clooney—cool, calm, and looking like you’ve done this a thousand times. Not a flustered rookie fumbling with gear. So, let’s tackle those common head-scratchers.

Can I Slap a Gel on Any Old Light?

Pretty much, but with one major caveat. Gels are perfect for modern speedlights, studio strobes, and especially LED panels because these lights run relatively cool. The big danger zone is with old-school continuous "hot lights" – think those big, searing tungsten lamps. They can get hot enough to turn a standard gel into a gooey, melted disaster.

If you ever find yourself working with one of those old beasts, you'll need to hunt down special high-temperature gels made to take the heat. But honestly, for 99% of the lights you'll use at an event, especially modern LEDs, your standard gels will be completely fine and a joy to work with.

Help! My Gel Colour is Spilling Everywhere!

Ah, a classic problem. Controlling your light is every bit as important as colouring it. The last thing you want is that slick, blue background wash creeping onto your subject's face and making them look like a Smurf. Not a good look.

The secret here is using light modifiers to rein it in. To stop that colour from contaminating your scene, you need to reach for a snoot or a grid.

• A snoot is basically a funnel for light. It’s a cone-shaped tube that goes over your flash and creates a tight, focused circle of light—perfect for a dramatic spotlight.
• A grid does a similar job of narrowing the beam, but the light quality stays a bit softer and more spread out than a snoot's.

Using these tools is like having a laser pointer for your light. You get to be incredibly precise, painting colour exactly where you want it and nowhere else.

Can't I Just Do This in Photoshop?

You could, but you probably shouldn't. While adding a splash of colour in post-production is technically possible, doing it in-camera with gels almost always looks more believable and saves you a mountain of editing later.

Think about what's actually happening. A gel creates real, physical light that wraps around your subject, bounces off surfaces, and creates authentic reflections in their eyes. Faking that complex interaction with a brush in Photoshop is a nightmare and often ends up looking, well, fake—especially on skin tones. For event work where you're delivering hundreds of photos, using gels is the only sane way to get a consistent, professional look.

Here's the deal: gels create coloured light, but Photoshop just paints coloured pixels. It sounds like a small distinction, but it makes a world of difference in the final image. One feels real, the other often feels forced.

What are the "Must-Have" Gels for a Starter Kit?

If you're just building your kit, don't get lost in a catalogue with hundreds of fancy-sounding colours. Just focus on the workhorses that will solve your biggest problems and open up your creative options.

You absolutely, positively need these four:

• A full CTO (Colour Temperature Orange): This is your get-out-of-jail-free card for matching your flash to warm, tungsten-lit rooms.
• A full CTB (Colour Temperature Blue): The opposite of a CTO, this one helps you match your flash to cool, natural daylight.
• A primary red and a primary blue: These are your creative powerhouses. They're incredibly versatile for everything from punchy, vibrant backgrounds to dramatic mood lighting.

With just those four in your bag, you can confidently walk into almost any lighting situation and have the tools to both fix problems and get seriously creative.