Foto Master

LED Ring: Workflow Step Overview

Updated Today · 4 min readBeginner

The LED Ring step drives a connected Foto Master LED ring from inside your workflow. It lets the light respond to what the guest is doing: a calm idle pattern while the booth waits, a spinning wheel during the countdown, a bright flash at capture, a celebratory rainbow at the end.

This article covers the workflow step. For wiring, power, and physical installation, see LED Ring Connections and the LED Ring V4 and LED Ring V5 setup guides.

What Is the LED Ring Step?

From the workflow's point of view, the LED Ring step:

  • Sends a lighting command to the connected ring and immediately moves on
  • Does not block the flow or wait for anything
  • Has no screen of its own: the guest sees the light change, not a UI

It is a Windows step and requires a connected LED ring. On iPad builds the step is hidden from the Steps Library; iPad booths drive their light through the iPad LED Light step instead, which sends the same kind of command from the iPad side.

Settings

Action is either start or stop. Start applies the pattern below; stop turns the ring off. The remaining settings only apply to start.

Pattern chooses the animation:

  • Spinning Wheel — a segment chases around the ring. The default, and a good "getting ready" state
  • Rainbow — cycles through colours around the ring
  • Glitter — random sparkle across the ring
  • Scanner — a bar sweeps back and forth
  • Right Fill / Left Fill — the ring fills progressively from one side
  • Right Ball / Left Ball — a single dot travels around the ring

Color is one of eight: White, Red, Green, Blue, Purple, Yellow, Cyan, Orange. It applies to the patterns that use a single colour; Rainbow ignores it.

Speed is Slow, Medium, or Fast. Medium is the default and suits most countdowns.

When Should You Use the LED Ring Step?

Use it whenever the booth has a ring attached and you want the lighting to be part of the experience rather than a constant.

Typical reasons:

  • Signalling that the booth is idle and available, versus in use
  • Building anticipation during a countdown with a spinning or filling pattern
  • Going bright white at the moment of capture, so the ring acts as the key light
  • Marking success, payment, or completion with a distinct colour
  • Matching the ring to a client's brand colour throughout the session

You do not need it if:

  • The booth has no LED ring connected
  • You are running on iPad, where the equivalent is the iPad LED Light step
  • The venue's lighting is fixed and controlled externally

How the LED Ring Step Fits in the Workflow

Because the step does not block, you place it before the thing it should illuminate and let the workflow carry on:

  1. LED Ring (start, Spinning Wheel, Blue, Medium) — the idle look
  2. Touch-to-start animation
  3. LED Ring (start, Right Fill, White, Fast) — anticipation
  4. Countdown animation
  5. LED Ring (start, Solid look via Left Fill, White, Slow) — bright for capture
  6. Live View (Start), Take Photo, Live View (Stop)
  7. LED Ring (start, Rainbow, Fast) — celebration
  8. Preview and sharing steps
  9. LED Ring (stop) before End Session

A few practical rules:

  • A start command replaces whatever the ring was doing. You do not need a stop between two starts
  • Put a stop before End Session so the ring does not stay lit between guests, unless you want it as an attract light
  • For capture lighting, choose White at a bright pattern and set it at least one step before Take Photo, so the light is stable by the time the shutter fires

Lighting quality

The ring is a light source, not just decoration. If you are using it as your key light for capture, choose a steady white pattern rather than an animated coloured one at the moment of capture: chasing patterns produce uneven exposure across faces, and coloured light shifts skin tones in ways that are hard to correct later.

Why the LED Ring Step Is Useful

For event operators:

  • Lighting that reacts to the workflow makes an ordinary booth feel produced
  • The ring communicates booth state across a room without any signage
  • Brand-colour lighting is a cheap, high-impact win in client pitches

For guests:

  • Clear visual cues about when to pose and when the photo is coming
  • Better-lit photos when the ring is used as the key light

Troubleshooting

Nothing happens when the step runs. The ring is not connected or not detected. Check the physical connection and see LED Ring Issues.

The ring stays on after the event. There is no stop step, or it sits on a branch that did not run. Add a stop before End Session.

Colour looks wrong in the photos. A coloured pattern is running at capture. Switch to White for the capture step and return to colour afterwards.

The step is missing from the Steps Library. You are on an iPad build. Use the iPad LED Light step instead.

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