How to Use A Marble To Detect Catchlights

Here is a fun trick that can help you quickly discover (and design) the look of catch lights in your photo.

Catch lights is the photo-lingo for the reflection of the light that you see in one’s eye. Most catch lights are rectangular in shape and are positions on the top right (or left of the eye) as they reflect a rectangular softbox.

But if you are using any other type of lighting, or simply want to see how a catch light will look like in any particular scenario, this quick method by Frank Donnino is perfect and takes practically no time.

Frank uses a black marble to see how the light behaves in any particular location. This works great because a black marble is essentially a perfect eye with no color distractions or shape oddities. Frank uses a 25mm marble (Which in case you are not plating marbles anymore is called a shooter) – you can give the rest of the pack to your kids.

[Can’t see the light? Don’t lose your marbles via popphoto | iso1200]