Canopy structure plays a significant role in growth, development and highquality and yield of fruit trees. In this study, we compared twentyyearold pears (Pyrus bretschneideri ‘Yuluxiang’) of OpenCentral Canopy (OCC) with three boughs (OCC_3b), four boughs (OCC_4b) as well as five boughs (OCC_5b) with those of the large and layered canopy (CK) for the canopy light interception, foliar gas exchange, chlorophyll fluorescence quenching, photorespiration and fruit quality characters, aiming to explore the effects of different light environment within canopy on foliar photosynthesis and fruit quality and elucidate the mechanism of photosynthetic regulation and fruiting regularity and thus provide an important theoretical basis for standardization of fruit trees training and pruning in the Loess Plateau of China. The results demonstrated that: (1) photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) intercepted by OCC_3b, OCC_4b and OCC_5b at different orientations and timing of the day were greater than those by CK significantly. Compared to CK and OCC_5b, the leaf maximum net photosynthetic rate (P_nmax) and carboxylation efficiency (CE) of OCC_3b and OCC_4b were significantly increased. (2) Under high light stress, leaves of OCC can efficiently dissipate excessive light energy by increasing the ratio of photorespiration rate (P_r) to gross photosynthetic rate (P_g) (i.e. P_r/P_g) and reversible component in NPQ ［r(qE)］ while decreasing irreversible component in NPQ ［r(qI)］. (3) The single fruit weight (SFW), coloring area at fruit surface (CA), anthocyanidin content in fruit skin (AC), soluble solids content (SS) and total soluble sugar content (TSS) increased significantly while titratable acid content (TA) decreased significantly in OCC_3b and OCC_4b than those in OCC_5b and CK. (4) At the significant level of P < 0.01, PAR was positively correlated with CA and AC but negatively correlated with TA, while P_nmax was positively correlated with SFW but negatively correlated with TA. In summarize, OCC_3b and OCC_4b could increase light energy interception by the canopy, leading to the increased foliar photosynthetic performance and the enhanced photoprotective capacity via more effective thermal dissipation with photorespiration. Accordingly, the improvement of light environment within canopy and leaf photosynthetic capacity after the OpenCentral Canopy pruning resulted in the improved fruit quality.