Trying to get a pure white background with no Photoshop Help what do you think?
Thanks
http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=1034741&size=md
Thanks
http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-display?photo_id=1034741&size=md
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First attempt for a pure white background
- Thread starter Paul40575
- Start date
Johnny Apertureseed
Leading Member
The link comes up "Picture Not Available" but the background on that page is quite white.
-T
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Q: What good is $25,000 worth of the latest digital gear when your
photography sucks?
I gotta say thats pretty darn good. I think any brighter and you'd have blowout problems.
Mark Lutz
http://www.visionsphotography.us
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Mark Lutz
http://www.visionsphotography.us
reyeslp
Senior Member
I've been trying for the last few days and I can't get it right but I think it is just because the room (living room) is just too small as the light keeps bouncing back into the camera. If that isn't the problem, I'd certainly be glad for any tips. Seems when I lower the power which eliminates the glare the background then shows through.
padeye99656
Veteran Member
Fortunately we can see that your background light isn't too far off the lens axs. Perhaps putting it at a more skew angle to the background would help. Also how shiny is the background material? Paper or cloth? Paper may not seem shiny but it's smooth enough to cause glare with a bright enough light source.
reyeslp
Senior Member
It's muslin. This lasr attempt was from behind me. I've tried it from 15 degrees to 45 degrees and it always has the same effect as soon as I turn up the power. Maybe the light is just bouncing around all the walls and furniture or something.
Don't over expose the background. You don't want it any whiter than white, or you'll get that kind of glare. The most direct way to do this is to take a reflected meter reading of the background and give it four stops more exposure (Zone System people will recognize this as placing the background on Zone 9). Alternately, you can take an incident reading of the light striking the background and be sure it's balanced with the exposur for the subject so that the background is not overexposed.
Also, limit the amount of light that "leaks" around the subject by being sure the lights on the background are behind the plane of the subject with respect to the camera. In addition, use some kind of gobo (an opaque, preferrably black light-shielding panel) on each side of the subject just barely out of the camera view.
RDKirk
'I know you're smarter than I am. But I think you're making up some of those words.' Rocky Rooster from 'Chicken Run'
Also, limit the amount of light that "leaks" around the subject by being sure the lights on the background are behind the plane of the subject with respect to the camera. In addition, use some kind of gobo (an opaque, preferrably black light-shielding panel) on each side of the subject just barely out of the camera view.
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RDKirk
'I know you're smarter than I am. But I think you're making up some of those words.' Rocky Rooster from 'Chicken Run'
A few things you can do:
1. Move your main light to directly over the camera position so that the shadows fall behind the subject (where they'll hopefully be hidden), or raise the light enough that the shadow does not fall on the background.
2. Move the subject forward (farther from the background) so that you can put separate lights on the background. If you do this, be sure not to overxpose the background (give it just enought exposure to make it reproduce as white), be sure the lights on the background are behind the plane of the subject, and place opaque gobos (light shields) on either side of the subject just outside the view of the camera.
3. Use a translucent plastic material as your background sweep and place a light underneath it.
RDKirk
'I know you're smarter than I am. But I think you're making up some of those words.' Rocky Rooster from 'Chicken Run'
1. Move your main light to directly over the camera position so that the shadows fall behind the subject (where they'll hopefully be hidden), or raise the light enough that the shadow does not fall on the background.
2. Move the subject forward (farther from the background) so that you can put separate lights on the background. If you do this, be sure not to overxpose the background (give it just enought exposure to make it reproduce as white), be sure the lights on the background are behind the plane of the subject, and place opaque gobos (light shields) on either side of the subject just outside the view of the camera.
3. Use a translucent plastic material as your background sweep and place a light underneath it.
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RDKirk
'I know you're smarter than I am. But I think you're making up some of those words.' Rocky Rooster from 'Chicken Run'
reyeslp
Senior Member
Thanks. These certainly helps me understand why it sometimes works and doesn't work.
From what I gather 2 background lights are used by some. And I'm not too keen to do that now...or shall I say the wife isn't
. I may try the shielding technique since I've got some poster boards handy.
From what I gather 2 background lights are used by some. And I'm not too keen to do that now...or shall I say the wife isn't
. I may try the shielding technique since I've got some poster boards handy.Also, limit the amount of light that "leaks" around the subject by
being sure the lights on the background are behind the plane of
the subject with respect to the camera. In addition, use some kind
of gobo (an opaque, preferrably black light-shielding panel) on
each side of the subject just barely out of the camera view.
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RDKirk
'I know you're smarter than I am. But I think you're making up
some of those words.' Rocky Rooster from 'Chicken Run'
Interesting thread Paul, I was trying the same but with a smaller target object
below, I used one white card under the bottle curved it up behind the bottle with some books, stuck two white cards to the right and left of the bottle angled at 45 deg to reflect light into the sides of the bottle and bounced flash off the camera vertically up and then down off the almost white ceiling.I think you overexposed the back because some of the face is spoiled / whited out at the edge.
For my test it did also not work 100% as I wanted as some brown got into the shadows on the white which I had to desaturate out of the background (thats either my dirty ceiling or some reflection off wood in the room I think)
Any tips to improve this kind of thing also appreciated.
One light source only a Sunpak 383
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Mark
Kel Toookay
Senior Member
I take advantage of the tools that I have. These digital day not using PS is like building a house without using a power saw.
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Mike D
'Sometimes wrong, but never unsure'
However, if one has to do a catalog-full of shots like this, getting the right results when shooting will take soooo much less time than erasing the shadows from each shot in post-processing.
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RDKirk
'I know you're smarter than I am. But I think you're making up some of those words.' Rocky Rooster from 'Chicken Run'
photolando
Veteran Member
But if I know the client wants a pure 255 reading in PS for the background. and still hold the shadows on the product, it's nice to know I can do this in PS and not worry too much about my white background not being white enough when I shoot it.
Mike
Mike
J
Jack A. Zucker
Guest
Your background is too bright. It should be about 2 stops brighter than the foreground exposure. In your case it looks to be about 3.5x the foreground. That's why the "white" is bleeding into the foreground.
Ruby118571
New member
I've not so far had much success trying to whiten backgrounds using Photoshop. I'm photographing some particularly fiddly objects (jewellery, chains and such like) and trying to cut them out and place them on a pure white background is proving tricky. What technique do you find works best?
TIA
Presumably ruby you have a fairly white background in the image ? you have some options I think (I am not an expert)
1. not cut close at all ... select a boundary around the object, select the area outside the boundary, copy this selected part of the background into a seperate layer or object or whatever your software calls it - desaturate and perhaps lighten until you reach the level you want to blend into ..
Now you have a surrounding area which does not blend with the object .. in order to make it blend better, look at the properties of the selected area and blend it into the main image with a soft edge, my software allows up to 150px blending and you can choose, transparency levels, blend if lighter, if darker, hues and or transparency etc etc
2. Cut close - if it is a defined object which you can select around .. helps if you planned to do this already and photographed with a coloured (differentiated) background which you can auto select using a colour select wand rather than having to manually cut out. Again beware in case of needing to blend the edges of the object ... so do this selection etc at the largest image size ..
hope this helps
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Mark
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