How to Use Color Contrast in Photography to Create Striking Images

Many factors distinguish great photography from merely decent photos. Line, perspective, framing, light, tonal contrast, and focus all are key components of landscape, portrait, motion, and still life photography. Masters of color photography employ another key artistic element in their work: color contrast.

In photography, tonal contrast is the contrast between the lightest and darkest components of your photograph. In many artistic images, a photo's bright highlights will be pure white and its dark shadows will be pure black, with everything else falling into the grays in between. By this definition, a high contrast photo involves lighting extremes while a low contrast photo shows even lighting throughout.

Color contrast involves the relationship between colors on the color wheel. Warm and cool colors contrast with each other. Colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel (red and green, blue and orange, and yellow and purple) are known as complementary colors. When complementary colors are paired, the contrast is particularly striking.

There are many ways to introduce color contrast into your photography. You don't need to be a master of color theory; you simply need to recognize a few key types of contrast photography and consciously create images with complementary colors. Here a few key photography tips for producing good color contrast:

1. 1. Seek out images with just two colors. Two-color images are stark and arresting, and they naturally exist in the world around us. Envision the red of a cardinal against a backdrop of blue sky. Consider the contrast of a green shrub with the earthy brown of the soil beneath it. For composed still life images, you can pair a brightly colored object with a solid background. Bold colors produce more contrast.
2. 2. Contrast warm colors with cool colors. Various hues of red, orange, and yellow connote warmth. Blue, green, and purple are cool colors. A frosted blue vase against the earth tones of a red brick wall would provide a striking contrast.
3. 3. Use post-processing to enhance color contrast. Photo editing software can turn low contrast images into high contrast images long after your photoshoot has ended. Whether you use presets or do a manual edit, you can drastically alter the color contrast of raw files during postproduction. For instance, a muted blue can become a bold cyan simply by applying a digital filter. Even most cell phone cameras offer a contrast slider that instantly creates higher contrast images (unless they're washed out by bright sunlight).

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