Chiaroscuro Light

A dark image, and a single light that follows the cursor. Where the light lands, the picture comes back; everywhere else stays in shadow.

Chiaroscuro Light is made for portfolio, product and editorial pages where you want the visitor to look closely instead of scrolling past.

The light is painted, not cut out: a long, soft falloff with no hard torch edge and no blown-out centre. Only the lit side warms up, the way window light falls on a still life.

Lag: the light trails the pointer a little, so it moves with the hand rather than snapping to it. Set it to 0 for an exact follow.

Light Size and Falloff: from a tight beam to a wide, slow fade.

Darkness, Warmth and Warm Tint: how deep the shadow goes and what colour the light carries.

Rest X / Rest Y and On Leave: where the light sits before the visitor moves, and whether it returns there when the pointer leaves.

Grain: a fine film grain over the whole frame, generated in the browser - no image file.

Works with any image from the panel, Fill or Fit. Ships with a demo photograph so it works the moment you drop it in.

Zero dependencies and no network requests. Updates run on CSS variables, not React re-renders. Respects reduced motion. On touch screens the light follows the tap and the page still scrolls. On the canvas and in static exports it renders a still, lit frame.

Built by KHZ ART, a Tokyo studio working in editorial and fashion.