I don’t know how to describe it well, nor can I find any pictures, but occasionally you see photographs made with some sort of a soft filter that makes light “shine”. It is an essentially a feeling of “haze” and it can be seen in things like grass or hair with the light sort of having volume and substance and emerging throught the grass or hair.
It’s usually associated with a feeling of divinity or innocence.
What is this effect called and how is it achieved? Is it just a simple soft filter and special lighting or is there more to it?
Without an example of what you’re talking about, I’m guessing. (although your description was good)
It’s probably both. There are soft filters of various strength that give a ‘heavenly’ or ethereal look. They are often used for that very [creative] purpose.
The light will often take a radiant or diffuse appearence. Lighting is key to this; a filter alone will not give this. Natural light is great for this, particualrly early or late in the day. (Mid day natural light is often flat) Artificial light can be diffuse, and when using soft light boxes, and umbrellas (which can be silver or gold etc) you can create this radiant effect. Hair lights, overhead lighting and other lighting techniques can produce that effect.
Even on TV these things are done. Barbara Walters is done with soft filters (often done with older models) I’m fairly sure it is done with Judge Judy, and I’m pretty sure that Elaine Vargas is both backlit and softened. You end up with a creamy kind of diffuse look when done om TV.
Soft focus. There are a variety of ways to achieve it. Basically a small percentage of the light from the scene scatters rather than focusing where it should. The most “authentic” way to do it is with a lens poorly corrected for spherical aberration. The center of the lens focuses sharply but closer to the edges not so well. You can actually buy portrait lenses intentionally made this way. Other ways are with filters that scatter light yo give a halo effect around bright spots.
My enlarger has a soft-focus attachment which mounts to the lens being used. When the outer dial is turned, a set of translucent plastic fingers move in from the circumference towards the center, offering a variable degree of diffusion to the negative being printed.
Yup. Soft focus. And as pointed out it can be acheived a lot of different ways…in the camera, in the enlarger…but I should point out these days it may well be done in the computer. Specifically Photoshop->Filters->Distortion->Diffuse Glow
Another old way of doing a similar effect is to take a clear filter (like a UV or Haze filter) and smear Vaseline along the circumferance. You will also notice this soft focus effect on lenses that have been scratched up. Light bleeds into dark areas from light areas in high contrast sections of your pictures. (This is not a desired effect in this case.)
Probably combined with a technique called “backlighting” or “rim lighting” in which a light source (studio light or the sun) is positioned behind the model and is only visible at the edges and on the hair.
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