Fluorescent Lighting Photographing Effects

• Fluorescent lights tend to give a green or blue tint to a photo.ballyscanlon/Stockbyte/Getty Images
  
  Lighting is a key component in photography. There are different kinds of lighting you can use in your photos, each with advantages and disadvantages. Camera lenses interpret light differently than our eyes do, so different kinds of light do not look the same in photos as we see them. Natural light from the sun is often the most favorable for photography, because it best matches how your eye sees objects, although natural light is not always possible. Fluorescent lighting has some negative effects on a photo, but has a few advantages as well.
  
  

Disadvantages of Fluorescent Lights

• Fluorescent lights give off green and blue color tones that we do not usually see with our eyes. However, camera lenses pick up these tints and often show them in a photograph, so photos taken with fluorescent lighting as the primary light source often look green or blue. The amount of green or blue tint varies based on the amount of light captured in the photo, but generally, it is prominent enough to be noticeable. Fluorescent lighting also often produces shadows under peoples' eyes that make the eyes look dark and sunken in.
  
  

Advantages of Fluorescent Lights

• Fluorescent lights do have advantages in photography. The primary advantages of fluorescent lights are even light distribution across a room, and brightness. Fluorescent lamps or overhead lights spread the light out more evenly than natural light from a window or tungsten lights, and make the room brighter than those other two sources. The brightness and even light distribution helps to expose the photo faster, makes the photo look evenly lit throughout and helps to bring out details in your subjects that might be lost with darker light sources.
  
  

Fixing Fluorescent Light Effects

• Although fluorescent lights sometimes have negative effects on a photo, there are a few things you can do to combat the disadvantages. First, consider using your flash. Your flash comes with its own disadvantages, like causing red eye in peoples' eyes, but it helps block out the green and blue tints caused by fluorescent lights. Also, you can use post-production photo editing tools like Picasa or Photoshop to edit the photo and add more red tints to the photo to combat the green and blue overtones. These programs also can eliminate the red eye effect.