Lighting
The source, direction and quality of a shot's light: hard or soft, natural or artificial, time of day.
Why it matters in production
Light is what makes an image believable or false. In a prompt, we describe it as on a set: “late-afternoon light, low sun from the left”, “cold office neon”, “flat, even light” for a character sheet. Hard sun on skin in close-up, overcast sky for metal, glass and water. And the same light from one shot to the next within a scene.
Other names
key light · golden hour · hard / soft light
