The hottest Lighting Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Design Topics

Dangerous Light

Animation Obsessive • 23859 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26
🎨 Art & Illustration Lighting
  1. Classic cel-animation light came from photographic tricks like backlit/bi-pack exposures, holdout mattes and lens effects, not just simple on-screen glows.
  2. The analog look depends on film behavior — aggressive inverse-square falloff, color shifts, halation, bloom and grain — which standard Gaussian glows don’t reproduce.
  3. To recreate that “dangerous” light digitally you must layer custom glows and then push them through film emulation and texture, intentionally reintroducing the imperfections that digital pipelines usually remove.

The Surprisingly Long Life of the Vacuum Tube

Construction Physics • 27350 implied HN points • 15 Jan 26
🕹 Technology Lighting
  1. Vacuum tubes were the foundational electronic devices before transistors, used to control electron flow for amplification and switching. They powered radios, TVs, telephone systems, and early computers and enabled things like displays, X-rays, and microwave sources.
  2. The vacuum tube was not a single gadget but a whole family of related devices — gas-discharge tubes, triodes, tetrodes, CRTs, magnetrons, klystrons, and more. Each type evolved on its own path and found different practical uses.
  3. Semiconductors replaced tubes in most everyday electronics, but many tube technologies remain essential for high-power, high-frequency, or specialized scientific work. Examples include magnetrons in microwaves, klystrons and gyrotrons in accelerators and fusion experiments, and vacuum X-ray tubes in imaging.

Will you turn down the darn lights?

Something to Consider • 59 implied HN points • 10 Aug 24
🕹 Technology Lighting
  1. Modern headlights are much brighter than before, making it hard for drivers to see at night. This change is mainly due to safety standards that encourage brighter lights.
  2. The bright lights create a problem called negative externality, where too many bright headlights make it harder for everyone to see. Lowering the brightness can help improve safety and comfort for all drivers.
  3. New technology can help adjust headlights automatically based on other cars' positions. Advocating for softer lights and using adaptive headlights can make nighttime driving safer and more pleasant.

Advanced sun reproduction

Metabolic Repair • 19 implied HN points • 26 Aug 24
🕹 Technology Lighting
  1. To make your indoor lighting like the sun, consider using bicolor lights that can change color temperature throughout the day. This can help your space feel more natural, but they can be more expensive and may not be as bright as daylight lights.
  2. Using an LCD HDR monitor can enhance your viewing experience, allowing for brighter images and better color matching with outdoor light. This can be especially useful if your current monitor seems washed out with your new lighting setup.
  3. If you want your lights to match outdoor brightness, consider measuring the light levels in your space with a lux meter. You may need to upgrade to higher wattage lights or adjust your room's surfaces to increase reflected light.
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GM Shaders Mini: MandelBots

GM Shaders Mini Tuts • 117 implied HN points • 15 Jul 23
🕹 Technology Lighting
  1. Using raymarching for rendering buildings can simplify complex fractal generation
  2. Deferred rendering can be utilized to optimize lighting workload by rendering lights onto surfaces
  3. Implementing HDR tone mapping can enhance color accuracy and brightness transitions in the game graphics

#102 Let there be light

Design Lobster • 199 implied HN points • 07 Feb 22
🪑 Design Lighting
  1. Virtual reality headsets use different types of lenses for comfort and viewing experience, like 'pancake' lenses that reflect light back and forth to achieve magnification.
  2. The design of lighting fixtures, like the PH Artichoke light, can be both functional and visually striking, even when not in use.
  3. Designers should consider the qualitative aspects of a project, like the experience and metaphorical impact of light, in addition to the technical details.

#64 Why was beige all the rage?

Design Lobster • 219 implied HN points • 19 Apr 21
🪑 Design Lighting
  1. Computers in the past were commonly beige due to practical reasons, offering a vintage look that did not look too new or old.
  2. Designing with longevity in mind, like the Centennial Lightbulb that has been shining for over a century, showcases the importance of durability and smart design choices.
  3. Great design is timeless and should focus on understanding the unchanging aspects of human nature to create lasting impact.

Children of the Geissler Tube

Atlas of Wonders and Monsters • 1 HN point • 17 Nov 23
🕹 Technology Lighting
  1. Heinrich Geissler invented the Geissler tube, a crucial technology that led to the development of modern world technologies.
  2. Geissler tubes were originally sold as novelty items before becoming important for lighting, including fluorescent and neon lights.
  3. The Geissler tube's descendants include the cathode-ray tube used in TVs, computers with vacuum tubes, transistors, and even diodes, impacting numerous aspects of our daily lives.

Lighting Setup: More Power with Genaray LED Panels + Additional Shots

laserllama's blog • 0 implied HN points • 09 Jul 25
🎨 Art & Illustration Lighting
  1. Using Genaray LED panels gives more lighting power than traditional CFL softboxes. This makes a big difference in the quality of photos.
  2. The Westcott X-Drop stand is a good choice for background support, and the fabric tarps hold up well in practice.
  3. Shooting handheld with the new lights allowed for clearer photos at lower ISO settings, showing improved results even at f/22.

Canon R3 + New Lighting Setup

laserllama's blog • 0 implied HN points • 03 Jul 25
🎨 Art & Illustration Lighting
  1. The Canon R3 camera is great for photography, especially for indoor shots with low light. It offers fantastic image quality without needing expensive gear.
  2. A good lighting setup is important for taking good pictures of small items indoors. The use of affordable softbox lighting can make a big difference.
  3. The autofocus feature on the R3 is really impressive, locking onto details like the eyes of action figures. This makes capturing sharp images much easier.