Terms of use

Who these terms are between

They are between you and the operator of lightschemes.com, who is named in the privacy policy.

Using the site means you accept them — these terms, the privacy policy and the cookie policy. We do not put a wall in front of the site to make you click “agree”, so please read them: the cookie policy is where the analytics and the session recording are described, and where you can switch them off. If you do not accept them, the remedy is simple: stop using the site.

The site is free

Every setup, diagram, tool, guide, wiki entry and relight scene is free to read. There is no paywall, no metered limit, no trial, and no feature that opens up when you pay. If that ever changes, it will change for new things — we are not going to put something you already read behind a wall.

We do not guarantee the site stays up, stays free, or keeps any particular page at any particular address. We will not deliberately break links to pages people rely on, but this is a project, not a utility.

Accounts

You do not need one. An account exists so you can keep favourites, build collections, and write private notes against a setup.

• Give a real email address. It is how we verify the account and how you get back in.
• Your password is yours to protect. Tell us if you think someone else has it.
• One person per account. Do not share logins.
• You can delete your account whenever you like, from your profile. Deleting it deletes your profile, favourites, collections and notes.

We can suspend or close an account that is being used to attack the site, scrape it wholesale, impersonate someone, or abuse other people. Where it is reasonable to warn you first, we will.

What you write here

Your notes, collections and profile text are yours. We do not claim ownership of them and we do not publish them. Notes are private to your account.

You are responsible for what you write. Do not put anything in a note, a profile or a support message that you do not have the right to share — someone else's client work, a private address, another person's photograph. If you send us a suggestion for the library, you are giving us permission to act on it; we will not owe you a fee for an idea, and we will not pretend a good one was ours.

We back the site up. Deleted content may sit in a backup for a while before it ages out.

Acceptable use

Do not:

• Scrape or bulk-download the library, or use it as training data for a machine-learning model.
• Attack the site, probe it, or try to reach data that is not yours.
• Automate requests at a rate that degrades the site for other people.
• Republish the library — or a large part of it — as your own resource.
• Use the site to harass anyone, or to post anything unlawful.

Reading, linking, quoting and teaching from the site are all fine. That is the point of it.

Our work

The lighting setups, the written instruction, the diagrams, the tools and their logic, the wiki, the name and the design are ours, and copyright in them is held by LightSchemes. Quoting us with a link is welcome. Copying pages wholesale is not.

Images are covered separately. Every photograph, mood variation, relight frame and diagram on the site has its own terms — what you may share, how to credit us, and what needs permission. They are on the image license page, and those terms govern the images. Nothing here overrides them.

Product names, brands and equipment models mentioned in our teaching copy belong to their owners. We name them to describe photographic technique, not to imply any relationship.

Safety — read this one

This site teaches lighting. Lighting is not a safe hobby, and instruction is not supervision.

The setups here involve mains electricity, capacitors that hold a charge after a unit is switched off, flash tubes that shatter, continuous lights that get hot enough to burn skin and ignite fabric, modifiers that act as sails, and stands carrying weight above people's heads. Sandbags, cable runs, rigging points, load limits, ventilation, water, and the particular room you are standing in are all things we cannot see and do not know about.

So:

• You are responsible for your own set. Every setup on this site is a description of a lighting idea, not a risk assessment for your location.
• Follow your equipment's own manual. Where it disagrees with us about power, mounting, distance or heat, the manual wins.
• Do not exceed a stand's or clamp's rated load, do not rig above people without proper hardware and secondary safety, and do not modify equipment electrically.
• If you are working with other people, or in a venue, you may have legal duties of your own. Get proper advice. We are not it.
• Get a professional in for anything involving fixed electrical installation, structural rigging, or work at height.

We accept no responsibility for injury, damage or loss arising from acting on anything published here. If a setup looks unsafe in your room, it is — trust the room over the page.

No warranty on the teaching

We work hard to get the light right, and the site publishes measurements where it has them. It is still educational material. Angles, ratios, distances and gear suggestions are starting points to be adapted to your subject, your space and your equipment, not specifications.

The tools calculate from what you type in. They know nothing about your room, your modifier's real output, your subject's skin, or your camera's actual metering. Treat the number as a place to start metering from, not as a measurement.

The site is provided as it is, without warranties of any kind — express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose. We do not promise it is free of errors or that it will always be available.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, lost work, lost income, lost data, or damage to equipment arising from using this site or acting on its contents.

Nothing here limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited. If you are a consumer, you keep every right the law gives you regardless of what this page says.

Links out

We link to other sites — manufacturers, standards bodies, browser help pages, the documentation of tools we use. We do not control them and we are not responsible for what they say or do.

Changes and ending

We can change these terms. If a change is significant we will say so on the page, and the date at the top will change. Carrying on using the site after that means the new terms apply.

We can suspend or withdraw the site, or parts of it, without notice — although we will not do it for fun. You can stop using it at any time, and delete your account from your profile.

Contact

Anything about these terms goes through support. For anything about your data, the contact route is on the privacy policy.

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