What use do the color gels have?

Hi, Im a novie in fotography, i recently acquired a britek strobe setup, it consist of a squared softbox 2 umbrellas and a small 110 watt plastic flash, that brings gel covers of white, blue, red, yellow and a 4 flap light control which is what holds the gels in place.


Now, i've used the softbox, and the umbrellas and the small flash to fill in some spots, but i have a doubt on what use i can give the coloured gels. Anyone has any shots they can show how and why they used the coloured gels. and if you dont have shots, and can word it out, then i'll b glad to read too ;)

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3354/...be11776bca.jpg


You can use gels in a couple of ways. For one, you can gel your strobes to match the color of ambient light. That way, whenever you make a color temperature adjustment, you're changing all the light in the image the same way. It's much easier to do corrections when all the light matches in color. The second use of gels if for special effects purposes, like the image above. I used a blue gel on a strobe in the room behind the subject, and a CTO (orange) gel on the subject. The colors work well together and provide another layer of interest to the image.

Colored light can set moods, atmosphere and a sense of location. I use to work a lifestyle magazine and occasionally would be sent to a bar/nightclub to show people having good times there and you'd have to light them and then they looked fake and photoshopped into the pic. Use of strobes with colored gels for hair and edge lights made the shots believable. We'd just used gels that matched lights that were actually used in the bar.