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Hello there,
Can anyone advise me how I could make a white paper background look black? I know that you do this by underexposing the background and just lighting the model, plus moving the model away from the background but I am working in quite a small room and so cannot move the model away from the background very far. I have tried moving the model away from the background as far as I can, and have also set my lights to the lowest setting and just placing them onto the model, but the background is still coming up as an off-white greysih colour. Is there anything else I can to to make the background appear darker?
Help please!
I know it would be easier to use a black background but I cannot find my cloth one (just moved house so is packed away somewhere but cannot find it no matter how much I search!)
The shoot really has to be done today if possible which is why I'm wondering if anything can be done to make my white paper roll appear black?
Any help would be appreciated.
Quote: How can I make white background look black?
Forgive me...
Paint it.
Depending on the edge definition of the subject against the background, you could select the white background and then invert it. Just a thought...
Dave
Use the Extract tool on the subject and place it on a black layer.
Quote: Quote:
How can I make white background look black?
Forgive me...
Paint it.
It really depends on what you're photographing and how you're lighting it.
If it's a still life subject then yes, you can cut it out in PS and change the background colour but that really doesn't work with people unless you're prepared to spend a silly amount of time preserving hair detail.
If photographing people and you can use rimlighting or backlighting as in the shot of the girl here (2nd pic) then there's no problem because no light will reach the background. That photo is as shot with no computer work, the background was a white wall and a little bit of PP could easily make it completely black, I didn't do that only because I didn't want it to be completely black.
Again, it could be done with something like a beauty dish or even a softbox provided that the light was very close to the subject, at the right angle and that none of it reached the background. It wouldn't work with an umbrella because of the inevitable light spill and it wouldn't work if you introduced a fill light, because the distance from the camera position to the model would be too great for the light to fall off completely before reaching the background.
Hi chelle
it does sound that you know what you are doing, but there are a couple of things you can try.
for instance if you are shooting your white background at say F8 you need to change the exposure by three stops to reduce it to black so you background lighting now needs to be F22.
As Neal quite rightly said, unfortunatly you do need a larger room to stop the light hitting or spilling on to the background.
You can get over this by using FLAGS as Neal said but i would also use Softboxes on the front at 90 deg or 45 deg angle with the flags placed in just behind the model but out of sight, this should stop the light from hitting the background, also the softboxes will contain the bulk of the light inside the softbox. where as umbrellas allow the light to fly off in all directions.
Unfortunaly i can not add a drawing to this but think of the letter "H"
Place you lights on the outsides of the H with the model in the lower half central the flags become the cross bar if you like of the H. the distance of the top of the H to the background needs to be 3 stops then you should get a black background.
Hope this helps
Tony
also you often have to remove all ambient light. Room and window light sources.
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