Low, Mid, and High Key Lighting and its Relationship with Saturation

Note: This article was retrieved from my old website and has been updated for clarity.

For years, I’ve struggled to understand the relationship between the key and the saturation, so I did my research and did some studies to really understand the concept.

Here is what I have learned in a concise form:

• High key is overexposed, with the highlights being dominant. Due to the compressed value range, the mid values function as the darks/shadows, and they have the highest chroma, resulting in darks being highly saturated.

• Middle key is when the highlights and shadows are both balanced and neither of them dominates over the other. In this case, the mid-tone is highest in saturation.

• Low key is underexposed. Think noir style. It is when the shadows are much more dominant than the highlights; hence, in most cases, the light is most saturated here.

Here’s my cheat sheet study for visual learners (I’m one of them). I hope it helps!