Backlight
A shooting condition where the light source is behind the subject, often causing the subject to appear dark or silhouetted.
Backlight refers to a shooting condition where the light source faces the camera from behind the subject. The camera's auto-exposure can be drawn to the bright background, leaving the foreground subject dark or silhouetted.
Ways to expose a backlit subject include positive exposure compensation, a fill flash to illuminate the subject (daylight sync), and spot metering on the subject. Intentional silhouette photography is another technique, used for example in sunset portraits.
Post-capture correction involves lifting shadows using brightness adjustment or tone curves. However, aggressively brightening dark areas can reveal noise; shooting in RAW to preserve dynamic range is one option for backlit situations.