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Hi Everyone,
I wonder if you can help, I had my first studio session yesterday. The white background appears to be slightly grey, how would I have overcome this? The people in the photographs look to be exposed correctly.
Also does anyone know how I might make the background white in Photoshop?
Many Thanks,
Becky
in the studio you want to be lighting the background with your strobes to ensure that the background "burns out" or is white - if you go too powerful, you end up with the flash bouncing off the wall and affecting the subject - which you may or may not want, so be aware of that.
in Photoshop, best thing to do is use a levels/curves adjustment layer to blow the background out completely, then paint black onto
the mask where the subject is so that remains unaffected.
Spot meter off the face ............. if you use average metering the camera will try to set everything to mid grey thus giving you a muddy white backdrop.
Select the background by whatever means you prefer.......add an adjustment layer and use curves or levels to bring back the white. Then use the black/white bush to make sure the edges of your model are clean.
Hope this makes sense
Roy
Quote: Spot meter off the face ............. if you use average metering the camera will try to set everything to mid grey thus giving you a muddy white backdrop.
Just to clarify here - do you mean use a flash meter held at the subject's face, or something else?
Quote: Spot meter off the face ............. if you use average metering the camera will try to set everything to mid grey thus giving you a muddy white backdrop.
I'm a bit unsure of what this is getting at, so I'll just add what I think its getting at.
If you spot meter off the face with the camera then use flash (as you mentioned studio in your question, I assume you used studio lights?) then the reading you got for exposure would not work with flash - you'd have got a reading for a non-flash situation, so adding flash would give you a very burned out result.
So what you need to do instead is to get a "flash meter" and hold that in front of the modle, then trigger the flash - this will give you the correct aperture and shutter combination for the flashes set at their current settings/positions.
I'm pretty sure Roy just missed the fact you were in a studio situation with his advice, and gave you perfectly valid info on non-flash portraits
Yes that's what I did - I set my light meter on to flash mode and then fired the flash to get the right exposure. I had one light only on the model from the side with a very large diffuser and a reflector on the other side. Next time I will try lighting the background as well to hopefully keep it looking white.
Hi Becky
to fully answer this we need a bit more info,
how many light where you using,
how many lights do you have available.
how did you meter and what from.
What readings did you get, and what did you set the camera at.
i.e manual, shutter speed, ap, iso , white balance, did you turn off auto iso?
Where did you place your lights.
What colour is the background.
If you can let us know then hopefully we can help.
regards
Tony
Another way is to image/adjustments/replace colour in photoshop ( CS2 ),select the + picker if you've various shades of grey and move the lightness slider to the right, watch for the fuzzinness slider as well as this will give you some control.
Chris
Getting a good white background is quite easy with a little practise. The basis rules are to meter for your subject and set the camera for that setting. You then set the background lights 1.5 to 2 stops brighter than your camera setting.
Keep your model well in front of the background lights to avoid either direct lighting from the back lights or reflected light from the background.
I agree with the above i.e. background lights to be +2 stops over the main light; many studios use a system of black flags strategically placed to counter light being bounced back on to the model.
White will photograph white if you expose it correctly; thus it needs to be lit sufficiently. IMHO 2 stops more than the main light is overkill and will give 'blow back' difficulties particularly in a small space. If a background is evenly lit; half a stop more should be all you need unless the paper/cloth is extremely creased or dirty.
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