Emulating Old Hollywood Style in Modern Videos

How to Create Vintage Videos: A Comprehensive Tutorial

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

“Every accomplishment starts with a decision to try.” – A Vintage Thought

Vintage videos are ultimately the retro videos you have ever imagined. The look is highly inspirational in itself. The vintage effect in photography and videos results in a must-see look that everyone wants to capture all day long. The meaning of vintage is ‘the time when something of quality was produced.’ When something is called retro, it means old, recognized, and essential. Vintage also resembles love apart from videos and photos. All in all, it’s a positive and result-oriented thing to carry on in your videos. And this is what we want to mention in this post relating to the creation of vintage videos.

Here are some vintage-style video ideas for you to have a look at.

• Part 1: What to Consider When Shooting a Vintage Video?
• Part 2: How to Create a Stunning Vintage Video?
• Part 3: Tips to Make Your Vintage Videos Stand Out

What to Consider When Shooting a Vintage Video?

Vintage videos are kind of old school vibes and must be shooting accordingly by keeping in mind the following points. These are a sort of expert tips given by photographers based on their practical experience. First of all, you have to understand that a video can be made vintage, but you can’t change the actual environment of shooting. Some editing always involves there in every project out there. Still, the tips given below will help you a lot in creating a retro look.

Use Vintage Lenses

The very first helpful tip is to use a vintage lens. They allow chromatic aberration by distorting colors around the frame. Furthermore, you can find various kinds of lenses in terms of a vintage effect.

Decrease Contrast

Do the correct color grading by reducing the contrast a little bit. You must not level the retro videos in black or white or like-new videos. You can simply add a contrasting effect and then reduce it to have that vintage look.

Keep it a little soft

If you have ever noticed, the vintage videos are a little soft and look like degraded with time. It’s a result of decreased sharpness in the camera’s menu settings. You can even add a slight blur to the final video or simply use recognized software made for video editing .

Brighten up the black levels

Lots of black points in the video are not ideal for a vintage effect. The suitable approach is to bring up black levels and make it dark gray instead of inky black. This look can be achieved either by levels effect or curves effect in your editing software.

Reduce Saturation levels

Bringing down the saturation levels is another tip to create a vintage effect. The old videos are also absent in bright colors. Don’t go too crazy about reduction as 20%-30% saturation level is more than enough.

How to Create a Stunning Vintage Video?

What you need to get started as both beginner and professional is Wondershare Filmora Video Editor. It is a highly recommended software to create vintage videos. The intuitive user interface and lots of editing functions are helpful for a video editor. It has both primary as well as advanced editing programs to check. It has various advanced color tuning tools to promote the making of original videos. It features tint, temperature, Vignette, 3D Luts, Lights, and so on.

Steps for the vintage effect to videos on Wondershare Filmora Video Editor

Step 1: Upload video & make specific changes

The very step is to add the video by clicking the + icon. We have added the three sample videos from the library of Wondershare Filmora itself. Adjust them in the timeline as per your requirements.

After doing all the essential editing functions, click on the Effects tab given at the upper-left corner. Simply type the word Old in the Search tab.

The Old Video filter will immediately appear in the list of filters. Tap the “+” icon in Old Video filter to add to the timeline. Drag its ends right or left to adjust the duration.

Step 2: Apply White & Black Filters

The second step is to apply the Black & White filters. Go to the Effects tab and explore five Black & White filters available. Each of these filters is quite different and must be applied accordingly. Check the aesthetic of your video clip before any filter application to retro videos.

Step 3: Add the Sun Kissed or Sepia Tone Rise Filters to the video clip

There are various other categories of filters you can apply, such as Retro, Sun Kissed, and Sepia Tone, etc. The features of Filmora also present several subcategories such as Faux Film or Shake.

On the other hand, the subcategory of Sepia Tone features Sun-Kissed & Rise Filters to stimulate sepia-tinted texture and recreate the old visual style. The Sun Kissed filter presents brown and red colors to give that warm image atmosphere.

Step 4: Desaturate Video Clip

Now, you need to desaturate the video clip with Ash & Willow filters. We have typed Ash in the Search bar, and you can see the filter below. These filters are essential to desaturate the video with preset contrast, brightness, or exposure values.

Then, we have combined the black & white filter with an overlay of Film Reel Horizontal. It will help you sell the effect and make the video look more authentic. However, the only application of Black & White or Ash & Willow filters is not going to make any creative thing in terms of vintage videos. You have to mix overlays with features such as Random Dust or Film Reel Horizontal.

Step 5: Apply Black & White and Old Film Color Correction Presets to the video

You can also access the Advanced color correction Tab of Filmora from the Color button. It also features Preset and Adjusts Tabs to desaturate footage. The Preset presents a variety of options, including Black & White and Old Film. You just need to right-click the particular preset and select the Apply option.

Tips to Make Your Vintage Videos Stand Out

Following the helpful tips would assist you in creating awesome retro videos.

• You can use various vintage apps such as Retro VHS, RTRO Camera, 8mm, Camcorder, VSCO, etc. Or, despite using these limited apps, you can directly use our preferred video editing software called Wondershare Filmora.
• If you use a specific vintage camera, keep it on low highlights and low contrasts. Use color grading, as we have discussed above. They help to provide the ultimate old-school effect.
• Always keep low saturation settings for shooting vintage videos. Take control over Saturation, Hue, and Luminance of video.
• Add overlays and respective filters to recreate a required vintage look. You must add things that dust, scratch, and grain the heck out from the video that you have created.
• Lower the frame rate or FPS to create an excellent vintage look. You can make it to 18 or 14 FPS depending upon the aesthetic requirements.
• Keep an eye on black and white filters you have used. It’s because more of a black and white can ruin the actual vintage experience.

Conclusion

So, this is an ultimate tutorial on the creation of vintage videos. We Hope you have admired the steps and our recommended video editing software. Vintage means grand, and thus you should make it amazing as well. It is the reason we have stated all facts regarding the vintage effect in our post above. Wondering how to add such effect in FCPX? check this article:How to Create a Vignette in Final Cut Pro X?

Surely give a read and thank us later!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

“Every accomplishment starts with a decision to try.” – A Vintage Thought

Vintage videos are ultimately the retro videos you have ever imagined. The look is highly inspirational in itself. The vintage effect in photography and videos results in a must-see look that everyone wants to capture all day long. The meaning of vintage is ‘the time when something of quality was produced.’ When something is called retro, it means old, recognized, and essential. Vintage also resembles love apart from videos and photos. All in all, it’s a positive and result-oriented thing to carry on in your videos. And this is what we want to mention in this post relating to the creation of vintage videos.

Here are some vintage-style video ideas for you to have a look at.

• Part 1: What to Consider When Shooting a Vintage Video?
• Part 2: How to Create a Stunning Vintage Video?
• Part 3: Tips to Make Your Vintage Videos Stand Out

What to Consider When Shooting a Vintage Video?

Vintage videos are kind of old school vibes and must be shooting accordingly by keeping in mind the following points. These are a sort of expert tips given by photographers based on their practical experience. First of all, you have to understand that a video can be made vintage, but you can’t change the actual environment of shooting. Some editing always involves there in every project out there. Still, the tips given below will help you a lot in creating a retro look.

Use Vintage Lenses

The very first helpful tip is to use a vintage lens. They allow chromatic aberration by distorting colors around the frame. Furthermore, you can find various kinds of lenses in terms of a vintage effect.

Decrease Contrast

Do the correct color grading by reducing the contrast a little bit. You must not level the retro videos in black or white or like-new videos. You can simply add a contrasting effect and then reduce it to have that vintage look.

Keep it a little soft

If you have ever noticed, the vintage videos are a little soft and look like degraded with time. It’s a result of decreased sharpness in the camera’s menu settings. You can even add a slight blur to the final video or simply use recognized software made for video editing .

Brighten up the black levels

Lots of black points in the video are not ideal for a vintage effect. The suitable approach is to bring up black levels and make it dark gray instead of inky black. This look can be achieved either by levels effect or curves effect in your editing software.

Reduce Saturation levels

Bringing down the saturation levels is another tip to create a vintage effect. The old videos are also absent in bright colors. Don’t go too crazy about reduction as 20%-30% saturation level is more than enough.

How to Create a Stunning Vintage Video?

What you need to get started as both beginner and professional is Wondershare Filmora Video Editor. It is a highly recommended software to create vintage videos. The intuitive user interface and lots of editing functions are helpful for a video editor. It has both primary as well as advanced editing programs to check. It has various advanced color tuning tools to promote the making of original videos. It features tint, temperature, Vignette, 3D Luts, Lights, and so on.

Steps for the vintage effect to videos on Wondershare Filmora Video Editor

Step 1: Upload video & make specific changes

The very step is to add the video by clicking the + icon. We have added the three sample videos from the library of Wondershare Filmora itself. Adjust them in the timeline as per your requirements.

After doing all the essential editing functions, click on the Effects tab given at the upper-left corner. Simply type the word Old in the Search tab.

The Old Video filter will immediately appear in the list of filters. Tap the “+” icon in Old Video filter to add to the timeline. Drag its ends right or left to adjust the duration.

Step 2: Apply White & Black Filters

The second step is to apply the Black & White filters. Go to the Effects tab and explore five Black & White filters available. Each of these filters is quite different and must be applied accordingly. Check the aesthetic of your video clip before any filter application to retro videos.

Step 3: Add the Sun Kissed or Sepia Tone Rise Filters to the video clip

There are various other categories of filters you can apply, such as Retro, Sun Kissed, and Sepia Tone, etc. The features of Filmora also present several subcategories such as Faux Film or Shake.

On the other hand, the subcategory of Sepia Tone features Sun-Kissed & Rise Filters to stimulate sepia-tinted texture and recreate the old visual style. The Sun Kissed filter presents brown and red colors to give that warm image atmosphere.

Step 4: Desaturate Video Clip

Now, you need to desaturate the video clip with Ash & Willow filters. We have typed Ash in the Search bar, and you can see the filter below. These filters are essential to desaturate the video with preset contrast, brightness, or exposure values.

Then, we have combined the black & white filter with an overlay of Film Reel Horizontal. It will help you sell the effect and make the video look more authentic. However, the only application of Black & White or Ash & Willow filters is not going to make any creative thing in terms of vintage videos. You have to mix overlays with features such as Random Dust or Film Reel Horizontal.

Step 5: Apply Black & White and Old Film Color Correction Presets to the video

You can also access the Advanced color correction Tab of Filmora from the Color button. It also features Preset and Adjusts Tabs to desaturate footage. The Preset presents a variety of options, including Black & White and Old Film. You just need to right-click the particular preset and select the Apply option.

Tips to Make Your Vintage Videos Stand Out

Following the helpful tips would assist you in creating awesome retro videos.

• You can use various vintage apps such as Retro VHS, RTRO Camera, 8mm, Camcorder, VSCO, etc. Or, despite using these limited apps, you can directly use our preferred video editing software called Wondershare Filmora.
• If you use a specific vintage camera, keep it on low highlights and low contrasts. Use color grading, as we have discussed above. They help to provide the ultimate old-school effect.
• Always keep low saturation settings for shooting vintage videos. Take control over Saturation, Hue, and Luminance of video.
• Add overlays and respective filters to recreate a required vintage look. You must add things that dust, scratch, and grain the heck out from the video that you have created.
• Lower the frame rate or FPS to create an excellent vintage look. You can make it to 18 or 14 FPS depending upon the aesthetic requirements.
• Keep an eye on black and white filters you have used. It’s because more of a black and white can ruin the actual vintage experience.

Conclusion

So, this is an ultimate tutorial on the creation of vintage videos. We Hope you have admired the steps and our recommended video editing software. Vintage means grand, and thus you should make it amazing as well. It is the reason we have stated all facts regarding the vintage effect in our post above. Wondering how to add such effect in FCPX? check this article:How to Create a Vignette in Final Cut Pro X?

Surely give a read and thank us later!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

“Every accomplishment starts with a decision to try.” – A Vintage Thought

Vintage videos are ultimately the retro videos you have ever imagined. The look is highly inspirational in itself. The vintage effect in photography and videos results in a must-see look that everyone wants to capture all day long. The meaning of vintage is ‘the time when something of quality was produced.’ When something is called retro, it means old, recognized, and essential. Vintage also resembles love apart from videos and photos. All in all, it’s a positive and result-oriented thing to carry on in your videos. And this is what we want to mention in this post relating to the creation of vintage videos.

Here are some vintage-style video ideas for you to have a look at.

• Part 1: What to Consider When Shooting a Vintage Video?
• Part 2: How to Create a Stunning Vintage Video?
• Part 3: Tips to Make Your Vintage Videos Stand Out

What to Consider When Shooting a Vintage Video?

Vintage videos are kind of old school vibes and must be shooting accordingly by keeping in mind the following points. These are a sort of expert tips given by photographers based on their practical experience. First of all, you have to understand that a video can be made vintage, but you can’t change the actual environment of shooting. Some editing always involves there in every project out there. Still, the tips given below will help you a lot in creating a retro look.

Use Vintage Lenses

The very first helpful tip is to use a vintage lens. They allow chromatic aberration by distorting colors around the frame. Furthermore, you can find various kinds of lenses in terms of a vintage effect.

Decrease Contrast

Do the correct color grading by reducing the contrast a little bit. You must not level the retro videos in black or white or like-new videos. You can simply add a contrasting effect and then reduce it to have that vintage look.

Keep it a little soft

If you have ever noticed, the vintage videos are a little soft and look like degraded with time. It’s a result of decreased sharpness in the camera’s menu settings. You can even add a slight blur to the final video or simply use recognized software made for video editing .

Brighten up the black levels

Lots of black points in the video are not ideal for a vintage effect. The suitable approach is to bring up black levels and make it dark gray instead of inky black. This look can be achieved either by levels effect or curves effect in your editing software.

Reduce Saturation levels

Bringing down the saturation levels is another tip to create a vintage effect. The old videos are also absent in bright colors. Don’t go too crazy about reduction as 20%-30% saturation level is more than enough.

How to Create a Stunning Vintage Video?

What you need to get started as both beginner and professional is Wondershare Filmora Video Editor. It is a highly recommended software to create vintage videos. The intuitive user interface and lots of editing functions are helpful for a video editor. It has both primary as well as advanced editing programs to check. It has various advanced color tuning tools to promote the making of original videos. It features tint, temperature, Vignette, 3D Luts, Lights, and so on.

Steps for the vintage effect to videos on Wondershare Filmora Video Editor

Step 1: Upload video & make specific changes

The very step is to add the video by clicking the + icon. We have added the three sample videos from the library of Wondershare Filmora itself. Adjust them in the timeline as per your requirements.

After doing all the essential editing functions, click on the Effects tab given at the upper-left corner. Simply type the word Old in the Search tab.

The Old Video filter will immediately appear in the list of filters. Tap the “+” icon in Old Video filter to add to the timeline. Drag its ends right or left to adjust the duration.

Step 2: Apply White & Black Filters

The second step is to apply the Black & White filters. Go to the Effects tab and explore five Black & White filters available. Each of these filters is quite different and must be applied accordingly. Check the aesthetic of your video clip before any filter application to retro videos.

Step 3: Add the Sun Kissed or Sepia Tone Rise Filters to the video clip

There are various other categories of filters you can apply, such as Retro, Sun Kissed, and Sepia Tone, etc. The features of Filmora also present several subcategories such as Faux Film or Shake.

On the other hand, the subcategory of Sepia Tone features Sun-Kissed & Rise Filters to stimulate sepia-tinted texture and recreate the old visual style. The Sun Kissed filter presents brown and red colors to give that warm image atmosphere.

Step 4: Desaturate Video Clip

Now, you need to desaturate the video clip with Ash & Willow filters. We have typed Ash in the Search bar, and you can see the filter below. These filters are essential to desaturate the video with preset contrast, brightness, or exposure values.

Then, we have combined the black & white filter with an overlay of Film Reel Horizontal. It will help you sell the effect and make the video look more authentic. However, the only application of Black & White or Ash & Willow filters is not going to make any creative thing in terms of vintage videos. You have to mix overlays with features such as Random Dust or Film Reel Horizontal.

Step 5: Apply Black & White and Old Film Color Correction Presets to the video

You can also access the Advanced color correction Tab of Filmora from the Color button. It also features Preset and Adjusts Tabs to desaturate footage. The Preset presents a variety of options, including Black & White and Old Film. You just need to right-click the particular preset and select the Apply option.

Tips to Make Your Vintage Videos Stand Out

Following the helpful tips would assist you in creating awesome retro videos.

• You can use various vintage apps such as Retro VHS, RTRO Camera, 8mm, Camcorder, VSCO, etc. Or, despite using these limited apps, you can directly use our preferred video editing software called Wondershare Filmora.
• If you use a specific vintage camera, keep it on low highlights and low contrasts. Use color grading, as we have discussed above. They help to provide the ultimate old-school effect.
• Always keep low saturation settings for shooting vintage videos. Take control over Saturation, Hue, and Luminance of video.
• Add overlays and respective filters to recreate a required vintage look. You must add things that dust, scratch, and grain the heck out from the video that you have created.
• Lower the frame rate or FPS to create an excellent vintage look. You can make it to 18 or 14 FPS depending upon the aesthetic requirements.
• Keep an eye on black and white filters you have used. It’s because more of a black and white can ruin the actual vintage experience.

Conclusion

So, this is an ultimate tutorial on the creation of vintage videos. We Hope you have admired the steps and our recommended video editing software. Vintage means grand, and thus you should make it amazing as well. It is the reason we have stated all facts regarding the vintage effect in our post above. Wondering how to add such effect in FCPX? check this article:How to Create a Vignette in Final Cut Pro X?

Surely give a read and thank us later!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

“Every accomplishment starts with a decision to try.” – A Vintage Thought

Vintage videos are ultimately the retro videos you have ever imagined. The look is highly inspirational in itself. The vintage effect in photography and videos results in a must-see look that everyone wants to capture all day long. The meaning of vintage is ‘the time when something of quality was produced.’ When something is called retro, it means old, recognized, and essential. Vintage also resembles love apart from videos and photos. All in all, it’s a positive and result-oriented thing to carry on in your videos. And this is what we want to mention in this post relating to the creation of vintage videos.

Here are some vintage-style video ideas for you to have a look at.

• Part 1: What to Consider When Shooting a Vintage Video?
• Part 2: How to Create a Stunning Vintage Video?
• Part 3: Tips to Make Your Vintage Videos Stand Out

What to Consider When Shooting a Vintage Video?

Vintage videos are kind of old school vibes and must be shooting accordingly by keeping in mind the following points. These are a sort of expert tips given by photographers based on their practical experience. First of all, you have to understand that a video can be made vintage, but you can’t change the actual environment of shooting. Some editing always involves there in every project out there. Still, the tips given below will help you a lot in creating a retro look.

Use Vintage Lenses

The very first helpful tip is to use a vintage lens. They allow chromatic aberration by distorting colors around the frame. Furthermore, you can find various kinds of lenses in terms of a vintage effect.

Decrease Contrast

Do the correct color grading by reducing the contrast a little bit. You must not level the retro videos in black or white or like-new videos. You can simply add a contrasting effect and then reduce it to have that vintage look.

Keep it a little soft

If you have ever noticed, the vintage videos are a little soft and look like degraded with time. It’s a result of decreased sharpness in the camera’s menu settings. You can even add a slight blur to the final video or simply use recognized software made for video editing .

Brighten up the black levels

Lots of black points in the video are not ideal for a vintage effect. The suitable approach is to bring up black levels and make it dark gray instead of inky black. This look can be achieved either by levels effect or curves effect in your editing software.

Reduce Saturation levels

Bringing down the saturation levels is another tip to create a vintage effect. The old videos are also absent in bright colors. Don’t go too crazy about reduction as 20%-30% saturation level is more than enough.

How to Create a Stunning Vintage Video?

What you need to get started as both beginner and professional is Wondershare Filmora Video Editor. It is a highly recommended software to create vintage videos. The intuitive user interface and lots of editing functions are helpful for a video editor. It has both primary as well as advanced editing programs to check. It has various advanced color tuning tools to promote the making of original videos. It features tint, temperature, Vignette, 3D Luts, Lights, and so on.

Steps for the vintage effect to videos on Wondershare Filmora Video Editor

Step 1: Upload video & make specific changes

The very step is to add the video by clicking the + icon. We have added the three sample videos from the library of Wondershare Filmora itself. Adjust them in the timeline as per your requirements.

After doing all the essential editing functions, click on the Effects tab given at the upper-left corner. Simply type the word Old in the Search tab.

The Old Video filter will immediately appear in the list of filters. Tap the “+” icon in Old Video filter to add to the timeline. Drag its ends right or left to adjust the duration.

Step 2: Apply White & Black Filters

The second step is to apply the Black & White filters. Go to the Effects tab and explore five Black & White filters available. Each of these filters is quite different and must be applied accordingly. Check the aesthetic of your video clip before any filter application to retro videos.

Step 3: Add the Sun Kissed or Sepia Tone Rise Filters to the video clip

There are various other categories of filters you can apply, such as Retro, Sun Kissed, and Sepia Tone, etc. The features of Filmora also present several subcategories such as Faux Film or Shake.

On the other hand, the subcategory of Sepia Tone features Sun-Kissed & Rise Filters to stimulate sepia-tinted texture and recreate the old visual style. The Sun Kissed filter presents brown and red colors to give that warm image atmosphere.

Step 4: Desaturate Video Clip

Now, you need to desaturate the video clip with Ash & Willow filters. We have typed Ash in the Search bar, and you can see the filter below. These filters are essential to desaturate the video with preset contrast, brightness, or exposure values.

Then, we have combined the black & white filter with an overlay of Film Reel Horizontal. It will help you sell the effect and make the video look more authentic. However, the only application of Black & White or Ash & Willow filters is not going to make any creative thing in terms of vintage videos. You have to mix overlays with features such as Random Dust or Film Reel Horizontal.

Step 5: Apply Black & White and Old Film Color Correction Presets to the video

You can also access the Advanced color correction Tab of Filmora from the Color button. It also features Preset and Adjusts Tabs to desaturate footage. The Preset presents a variety of options, including Black & White and Old Film. You just need to right-click the particular preset and select the Apply option.

Tips to Make Your Vintage Videos Stand Out

Following the helpful tips would assist you in creating awesome retro videos.

• You can use various vintage apps such as Retro VHS, RTRO Camera, 8mm, Camcorder, VSCO, etc. Or, despite using these limited apps, you can directly use our preferred video editing software called Wondershare Filmora.
• If you use a specific vintage camera, keep it on low highlights and low contrasts. Use color grading, as we have discussed above. They help to provide the ultimate old-school effect.
• Always keep low saturation settings for shooting vintage videos. Take control over Saturation, Hue, and Luminance of video.
• Add overlays and respective filters to recreate a required vintage look. You must add things that dust, scratch, and grain the heck out from the video that you have created.
• Lower the frame rate or FPS to create an excellent vintage look. You can make it to 18 or 14 FPS depending upon the aesthetic requirements.
• Keep an eye on black and white filters you have used. It’s because more of a black and white can ruin the actual vintage experience.

Conclusion

So, this is an ultimate tutorial on the creation of vintage videos. We Hope you have admired the steps and our recommended video editing software. Vintage means grand, and thus you should make it amazing as well. It is the reason we have stated all facts regarding the vintage effect in our post above. Wondering how to add such effect in FCPX? check this article:How to Create a Vignette in Final Cut Pro X?

Surely give a read and thank us later!

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Elevating YouTube Productions with Effective Video Lighting

How To Light Your YouTube Video

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett

Oct 26, 2023• Proven solutions

0

When it comes to sensitivity to light, no consumer-level camera sensor comes close in performance to the human eye. Many newbies to videography, though, don’t think about this when they use their camera indoors and discover that their recorded footage appears too dark.

If you want to use your camera indoors as many YouTubers do, you’ll need to have extra light. But the solution is not as simple as surrounding yourself with lamps that are all randomly placed.

Below, I’ll go into detail on how you can set up your lighting equipment to make your YouTube videos look good.

Table of Contents Using Light You Already Have Window LightingHome Lighting Home Studio Lighting Light Control3-Point Lighting4-Point Lighting

Part 1: Using Light You Already Have

Most beginner YouTubers light their videos with what they already have. That’s what I did to start as well. In the past, my video recording space consisted of natural sunlight coming from my window and ceiling light for times when the sunlight wasn’t strong enough.

1. Window Lighting

The best thing about window lighting is that it’s free. The worst thing about it is that it’s uncontrollable. The amount of light you get in your video can vary with all the changes in the weather.

Window lighting for me was especially difficult to work with because I live in a very rainy and cloudy city, Vancouver, Canada, where we pretty much just get three months of good sun.

Above are two freeze frames from one of Daniel’s past window-lit vlogs. Although these two frames are both from the same vlog, you can see that the image on the right looks brighter due to clearer skies at that moment. These varying amounts of light is what you will have to deal with if you choose to light your YouTube video with window lighting.

2. Home Lighting

Home lighting is another source of light that many new YouTubers use. In the past, when my window light wasn’t strong enough to light my video recording space, I would turn on the ceiling light.

Notice how the color of Daniel’s skin looks much more orange here (above) than the color of the skin in the two side-by-side window lighting examples? The side of the face also appears to look bluer. This all happened because he mixed up different color temperatures shining out of the two lights (cooler window light and warmer ceiling light).

Most home lighting is warmer in its color temperature. If you want to use your home lights without everything being orange-tinted, you’ll need to switch out your light bulbs for daytime LED light bulbs.

Ceiling lights are also typically situated in the center of a room in order to light an entire room evenly. This is not likely to be the best location for your filming video. Since the ceiling light was directly above the face in the above example, you can see harder shadows beneath his cheeks.

Part 2: Home Studio Lighting

If you rather not deal with all the window and home lighting challenges, you can set up studio lighting in your home.

1. Light Control

The first thing you’ll want to do to set up studio lighting in your home is to pick a room to film in and eliminate as much external lighting as you can. Use blinds, curtains, towels, or any thick fabric to block sunlight from shining into your room.

2. 3-Point Lighting

The most common setup for studio lighting is 3-point lighting. For this kind of lighting you’ll need three lights: a key light, a fill light, and a back light (also called a hair light).

Out of the three lights, the key light should be the brightest. When it is positioned to the left of you (as shown in the diagram above) your right side will have shadows.

To minimize the shadows on your right side, use a weaker light as a fill light. You don’t want your fill light to completely eliminate all your shadows or else your shot will look flat.

Lastly, a backlight positioned behind you can give an appealing highlight to the ends of your head and even help to separate your hair from blending into your background if both happen to be dark.

3. 4-Point Lighting

As a YouTuber, you may not only want yourself to be seen optimally with proper lighting, but you may also want your background to be seen optimally, especially if you’ve taken the time to decorate it for your audience.

What you’ll need to ensure that your background is sufficiently lit is 4-point lighting setup. The 4-point lighting setup is the same as a 3-point lighting setup, but with an additional light shining at your background.

For more information on lighting equipment, check out my Top 17 Video Lighting Equipment For YouTubers .

Touch Up YouTube Videos with Filmora

Filmora is one of the best video editing software for YouTube beginners to start the YouTube channel. So, if you find the lighting isn’t perfect after recording, you can use the Auto Color Enhancement feature in Filmora to adjust the color with one-click. Or, you can change the white balance, Light, color, and HSL manually. Filmora also features some presets and LUTs templates , which allows you to apply pre-programmed effects to video for color correction faster.

Richard Bennett

Richard Bennett is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Richard Bennett

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