The End of Colour Gel Packs

Sadly, this is the end of my coloured gel packs. I’ve been selling my exclusive coloured gel collections for nearly a decade, but sadly the time has come to sell the last of my packs. Please know that this wasn’t my decision, but sadly it is a sign of the changing times in our industry.

LEDs are the New Gels

With the stratospheric rise in popularity of LED lighting and more specifically, RGB LED lighting that has the ability to access literally millions of colours at the flick of a switch, gel sales have been dropping off dramatically for many years now. But even at the beginning, I never made any real money from the packs I sold, simply due to how expensive it was to make these smaller batches of packs.

Originally, LEE Filters made and produced my packs, but some years ago they decided to cease production of them, or more accurately, they needed a huge number of packs to be ordered for it to be worthwhile on their end. From here Rosco took up the mantle and I was able to switch manufactures with (as far as my extensive testing could tell) no difference or drop in quality. But sadly, they too have now decided that it’s simply too costly to make these cut-gel packs anymore.

To give you some idea of the shifts in the gel pack decline; when I originally released these packs back in 2015, they were being sold at £30 a pack. Now, less than 10 years later, that price has more than doubled!

The End of ‘Cut-Gels’

Both LEE and Rosco still manufacture coloured gels of course as many of the major cinema and TV studios still use the traditional hot-lights and they still require coloured gels to adjust the colour of those lights. Just remember, these gels are sold to them on huge rolls and due to the nature of those older tungsten (hot) lights, those gels invariably melt and need to be replaced, meaning that the gels on set are more of a ‘consumable’ than many of us stills photographers are used to. After all, we may only buy one or two packs of gels and if we’re careful, those gels would last us decades.

To give you some idea of just how ‘consumable’ rolls of gels are on set, Roger Deakins famously said this about how many he used during the filming of Bladerunner 2076, “…we used soft sources and lots of gels on the lampheads to create the different color atmospheres. We went through almost 1,400 rolls of gel by the time we had finished shooting!”

Now both LEE and Rosco have decided to limit their ‘cut-gel’ production and they primarily only produce full rolls now. There may be other gel manufactures out there, but both LEE and Rosco are really the only industry standard gel manufactures today, so if I was to look at yet another gel producer to make my packs, I would run the risk of a drop in quality.

So, What’s Left?

I was informed late last year that there would be no more gels in 2024 and now I have personally purchased the last remaining few packs from them. I’ll keep a couple of the packs for myself, but the last few packs I’ll sell off to anyone that’s interested in a obtaining a useable memento of a bygone era.

Plus, as an extra thank you for all of your support over the years, all of these final few gel packs will be signed by myself on the front of each one too.

Please note that all of these sales are FINAL, there will be no more gel packs and I will personally send these packs out to you myself, so please be patient.

Further Details on my Coloured Gel Packs

I've been fortunate enough to work together with one of the largest gel manufacturers in the world to pull together these three exclusive gel packs. and these packs incorporate all the gels I use on regular basis to create my distinctive coloured gel shots.

Each of the three packs cover three very different colour ranges.

Definitive Colour Pack

The Definitive Colour Pack that contains my core saturated colours. These are the colours I use for maximum saturation and impact, plus for convenience this pack also includes a few duplicates of the main colours to create specific looks that incorporate side lighting or any other lighting that needs duplicates of the same colour from multiple angles.

Pastels Colour Pack

The Pastels Colour Pack contains a range of softer, more subtle colour tones. This pack is great for when you don't want colour to completely dominate a shot or if you want to just add an accent of colour to compliment certain items or fashion pieces. Plus, this pack also contains duplicate gels of the main core colours.

Utility Gel Pack

The Utility Gel Pack is a range of filters that are primarily for more utilitarian tasks or subtler cinematic effects. It contains colour balancing gels for both daylight and tungsten in the form of Colour Temperature Orange (CTO) and Colour Temperature Blue (CTB) gels, plus it also contains neutral density (ND) gels and diffusion gels. You can either use these gels on their own or in conjunction with any of the other gel packs.

If you are considering buying all three packs then there is currently a triple pack available at a discounted rate, the link for the triple pack can be found at the bottom of the page.

To purchase this gel pack please click on the link below. These Gel Packs are sold exclusively through Amersham Studios and the link will take you directly to their store where you can add them to your basket.

If you are considering buying all three packs then there is currently a triple pack available at a discounted rate, the link for the triple pack can be found at the bottom of the page.

The Utility Gel Pack from Jake Hicks Photography allows Jake to colour correct his flash and tungsten modelling bulbs to take long exposure images . Plus by using the neutral density gels it allows Jake to shoot at wide open apertures with more powerful flashes and open a whole wealth of options with shallow depth of field photography in the studio.

To purchase this gel pack please click on the link below. These Gel Packs are sold exclusively through Amersham Studios and the link will take you directly to their store where you can add them to your basket.

If you are considering buying all three packs then there is currently a triple pack available at a discounted rate, the link for the triple pack can be found at the bottom of the page.

Some Frequently Asked Questions

So why use these gels over other gels?

Well it may be easy to think that gels are all the same, after all it's just a little bit of plastic right? Unfortunately that's not the case. But take it from somebody who has probably used more gels than most, these gels are thicker than most and they provide a better colour at varying power ranges because of it.

You obviously know what you’re talking about Jake, but what's so special about your coloured gel packs?

Most gels are made for cinema, theatre and TV, and as a result, they need rolls and rolls of gels for their vast forest of lights on set. For us photographers though, we don't tend to need huge rolls of twenty different colours as that can get pretty costly, very quickly. What I've been able to put together here are packs of smaller sheets specifically designed for both strobes and speedlights. Also, there are thousands of different coloured gels to choose from, so knowing where to start and what colours to go for can be a bit daunting to begin with. The packs that I've put together here, incorporate colours that I use regularly to provide not only maximum colour saturation, but gels that work well in conjunction with one another based on strong colour theory and years of trial and error.

Awesome! That sounds fantastic, but can I only use them on studio strobes or are they fine to use on my speedlights to?

Yes you can use them on your speedlights and any other flashgun as well as your studio strobes. The size of each of the sheets is 10"x12" (255mmx305mm approx.) so you could even cut a strip off the bottom of them and use that for your speedlights and still have a large enough gel left for your strobe.

I see the gels come in sheets but how do I attach them to my lights?

This is a good question because I can speak from experience when I say ‘I've tried a lot of different ways of keeping the gels on my lights’. Some lighting modifiers actually come with custom built gel clips, but for those that don't, I simply recommend tape. Not just any tape though, avoid masking tape, brown tape and clear tape like the plague, as they all get very gooey and sticky when heated under hot lights, plus they will often leave sticky residue behind on your gels and modifiers. The best tape I've found is the black gaffers tape. This tape is the thick fabric-like tape you can buy online for only a few pounds/bucks. This is not to be confused with the silver duct tape, as that is super gooey when hot and will leave your gels in a real mess.

Here's a couple of examples on how to attach your gels to various modifiers using that black gaffers tape.