There are some who believe barn doors are only on a lighting fixture to protect the bulb from breakage. While a legitimate use, they were originally conceived for a more artistic purpose; to shape or control the beam of a light by keeping it off the places you don't want it.
| Open faced fixtures will create two barn door shadows. One from the filament in the bulb, and another from the reflector surrounding the lamp. This double shadow can be used as a feathering or graduating effect, and can be smoothed out somewhat by slightly spotting the focus of the light or clipping a very light diffusion gel across the Barn doors. | Barn doors are typically used on smaller hard light sources. Barn doors on large soft sources are a rarity, as they would need to be proportionally larger than the light to have any useful effect. |
 Omni-light, Barn Doors, Wide Open |
 Omni-light, Barn Doors, Wide Open Effect |
 Omni-light, Barn Doors, Vertical Slash |
 Omni-light, Barn Doors, Vertical Slash Effect |
| Adding a Diffused Glass accessory to Barn Doors will give a more subtle cutting effect. The fact that the diffusion is placed between the lamp & the Barn Doors is what allows some level of beam cutting to still occur. |  Omni-light, Barn Doors, Diffusion Glass |
 Omni-light, Barn Doors, Diffusion Glass Effect |