LightPanel

Portable LED Light Panel

LightPanel

LightPanel is an App that turns your mobile device into a flexible multi-purpose LED light panel - one that you always have with you to provide fill light for macro or product photography:

  • Both brightness and colour temperature are modifiable.

  • Colour temperature can be varied between 1,500K and 15,000K.

  • New with version 1.1, LightPanel can display arbitrary colours for creative lighting effects.

LightPanel can also be used as a lightbox or light table, for scanning slides & negatives or tracing artwork:

  • A grid can be displayed to aid alignment on the light table.

  • The grid can be resized and moved around.

LightPanel is available as a universal purchase for iPad, iPhone & iPod Touch running iOS 12 or later and Macs running MacOS 10.15 (Catalina) or later.

The Mac version can be controlled with the TouchBar, menus & keyboard shortcuts in addition to the interface of the iOS version.

Keyboard shortcuts also work in LightPanel 1.3 on iPads running iOS 13 or later with a hardware keyboard attached.

LED Panel

In this picture I'm using LightPanel as a fill light for a product photo.

I've set the light temperature to match the rest of my indoor lighting.

Lightbox

Here I'm using LightPanel to scan a slide with my camera.

I've adjusted the grid to match the size of a slide to make it easier to keep subsequent slides in the exactly the same position.

Screenshots

Carousel imageCarousel imageCarousel image

Controls

One-finger Drag

Change screen brightness.

One-finger Tap

Show LightPanel Settings.

Keyboard: ⌘-S

Two-finger Tap (except Mac)

Show or hide the alignment grid.

Keyboard: ⌘-G

Two-finger Drag

Move the alignment grid.

Zoom In/Out

Resize the alignment grid.

Brightness Controls

As well as just dragging your finger across the display, Screen Brightness can be controlled from the Settings panel:

  • Choose a preset value from the brightness buttons.

  • Enter a direct brightness value.

  • Drag the slider to taste.

Temperature Controls

The approximate Colour Temperature of the screen can be controlled from the Settings panel:

  • Choose a preset value from the temperature buttons.

  • Enter a direct Kelvin temperature.

  • Drag the slider to taste.

Hue Control

LightPanel can display arbitrary colours, rather than using the selected colour temperature:

  • Tap the Hue button to quickly switch between Colour Temperature and Hue colours.

  • Drag along the slider to change Hue.

  • Drag up & down away from the slider to adjust Saturation.

  • Drag parallel to the slider to adjust Brightness.

Known Limitations

LightPanel has some limitations controlling screen brightness on a Mac:

  • LightPanel only controls the brightness of the primary display in a multi-monitor setup. Given LightPanel is intended to be used on a mobile device this is unlikely to be an issue in practice.

  • LightPanel can only control the brightness of a monitor if the Mac itself can control it's brightness (eg via the Display pane of System Preferences).

  • LightPanel cannot control screen brightness on an M1 Mac. This is because Apple have not yet provided a public API that works on Apple Silicon. The brightness controls are disabled in this case.

Support

Please email lightpanel@bulsara.com to get help or more information.

Privacy Statement

LightPanel doesn't access or store personal or device information of any kind.

Acknowledgements

App icons made by Freepik from www.flaticon.com

Music: public domain recording of Chopin's Etude No.2 in A flat Major by Donald Betts