![]() And sometimes, they’re not just a single color. ![]() Some photographers prefer colors-often blues and greens. And most are non-reflective for flash photography.īut they’re not always white. If you use colored light filters, the white background will adopt the color of the lights. You can easily change the color of a white background by changing the lights. It also makes editing and post-production much easier. A white background lets the subject pop without distraction. Most photography backdrops are white, which gives you the most freedom as a photographer. They’ll have a backdrop of some kind among their studio equipment. It doesn’t matter what type of photography they practice, whether it’s fashion, close-up portraits, or animal photography. And the edge refinements we made above make sure you’ll still have a nice, realistic edge on the subject even if you brush right over it.ĭepending on how wrinkly the background is, you may have to brush over it more than once, but after less than a minute you should have a nice smooth background.You’ll find a photography backdrop in every photo studio you go into. The nice thing here is that since we’ve selected the background, you can brush right over your subject and it won’t be affected. Begin brushing over the background (you’re really painting on a slightly see-though layer of color that matches the background) to smooth out the wrinkles. Hit B for the brush tool and use the drop down menu at top left to choose a soft edge brush, and set the opacity at about 60%. Now we have the background selected and can start brushing over it to smooth out the wrinkles. Increase the smooth value to 3, the feather value to about 7, and the contract/expand value at -5. Next, click the button at the top of the screen that says “refine edge” (you can see it in the photo above). If your backdrop is a different color than your subject, as in the photo below, PSE will be able to do this very easily without much work at all on your part. Next, select the background using the quick selection tool. Click on the foreground color square at the bottom left of your screen, then click on your background to sample the color. We’re going to use this color to brush over the wrinkles, so we want it to be the main color in the background (not a dark area where a wrinkle is or a very bright area). Our next step is to sample a neutral color from your background. If it’s turned all the way up, which it probably is, your photos will appear much brighter on your screen then they’ll look when they get printed, leaving you will dark prints.) (FYI – remember to turn down the brightness of your monitor when editing images. Hit ctrl-L to get the levels screen you see below, and move the triangles below the histogram around to brighten and add contrast as needed (for a full explanation of how to do this, read this post). It’s a good idea to start any photo editing with a quick levels adjustment to brighten the photo if needed. Also, this process is much simpler if the backdrop is a different color than your subject – so a white backdrop works well with this brown bear suit, but a brown backdrop would make things much more difficult. Blankets with lots of texture require a different editing process and what I’m suggesting here will not work. Quick note: This process works with smooth backdrops, like sheets or fleece blankets, and results in a very smooth background. The third is to decide you’ll take care of the wrinkles after the fact using Photoshop Elements. Another is to grab an iron/steamer and steam it once it’s hanging in place. There are a few things you can do to combat this on the front end – the first is to stretch the blanket/sheet out and clamp it tightly (assuming there is something you can clamp it to) to minimize wrinkles. However, unless you iron the heck out of it beforehand, a portrait taken with a sheet/blanket background is going to end up with lots of wrinkles in the background: Another option is to simply grab a sheet or blanket in any solid color and use it for a backdrop – simple and super versatile. But what if you don’t want a black backdrop? One option for small children is my DIY photography backdrop board, which you can see in action in this post. A few weeks ago I showed you how to set up a DIY photography studio in your garage to take advantage of natural light, and I recommended you use black stretch velvet for an easy and fairly inexpensive backdrop.
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