Blue Screen or Green Screen?

[donnyk]

Hi,

I am opening my studio and will be shooting digital. For the background, I prefer to plain color background and it comes down to Blue screen or Green screen?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

--
Happy Shooting...

------------------------------------------------
Another Nikon D100 Owner, pBase Supporter
.: http://www.pbase.com/donnyk :.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. --Albert Einstein

 

[caro]

Hi,

I am opening my studio and will be shooting digital. For the
background, I prefer to plain color background and it comes down to
Blue screen or Green screen?

As far as I know blue and green screens are going to cause more headache than benefit for still photography. They are used for video and film as a "necessary evil" since matting process require pure, easy to separate colour. The blue or green background will reflect your lights and cause huge problems spilling these strong colours on your subject. It is much easier to replace evenly lit neutral background in photoshop than fight losing battle trying to balance colour.

 

[YoungJedi]

Just make sure you have enough distance between your subject and the backdrop so there is no color bleeding. Then the postprocessing will be better and easier....Good luck

Hi,

I am opening my studio and will be shooting digital. For the
background, I prefer to plain color background and it comes down to
Blue screen or Green screen?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

--
Happy Shooting...

------------------------------------------------
Another Nikon D100 Owner, pBase Supporter
.: http://www.pbase.com/donnyk :.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
--Albert Einstein

 

[RDKirk]

Both of the two answers above are right.

The secret is in "enough space." It works if your studio gives you enough room between background and subject to completely divorce any color balance effects of the background from the subject. Don't expect to do this with full-sweep backgrounds.

Otherwise, you will find that the green background causes fewer extraction problems because it's less common in subjects. How many people wear green jeans, for instance.

Hi,

I am opening my studio and will be shooting digital. For the
background, I prefer to plain color background and it comes down to
Blue screen or Green screen?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

--
Happy Shooting...

------------------------------------------------
Another Nikon D100 Owner, pBase Supporter
.: http://www.pbase.com/donnyk :.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
--Albert Einstein

--
RDKirk
'TANSTAAFL: The only unbreakable rule in photography.'

 

[donnyk]

The secret is in "enough space." It works if your studio gives you
enough room between background and subject to completely divorce
any color balance effects of the background from the subject.
Don't expect to do this with full-sweep backgrounds.

Otherwise, you will find that the green background causes fewer
extraction problems because it's less common in subjects. How many
people wear green jeans, for instance.

Hi,

I am opening my studio and will be shooting digital. For the
background, I prefer to plain color background and it comes down to
Blue screen or Green screen?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

--
Happy Shooting...

------------------------------------------------
Another Nikon D100 Owner, pBase Supporter
.: http://www.pbase.com/donnyk :.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
--Albert Einstein

--
RDKirk
'TANSTAAFL: The only unbreakable rule in photography.'

--
Happy Shooting...

------------------------------------------------
Another Nikon D100 Owner, pBase Supporter
.: http://www.pbase.com/donnyk :.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. --Albert Einstein

 

[photomel]

Donny, I had the same intention and bought a green screen. However, after using it and then doing more research I have found that blue compliments skin tones MUCH better than green. Had I known that for portraits I probably would have done blue first. However, you do not need specifically blue or green - just an evenly colored background. I have heard that white works well and the spill is not colored.

I agree with the posts above that green is easy to extract but not getting the subject far enough from the background causes spill - and in the case of the green screen causes a "sick" (like the flu) feel to the subject. It can also be very difficult to extract in photoshop as it is hard to get that spill out of the hair. I decided, since this is still a service I want to provide, to purchase primatte ( http://www.digitalanarchy.com/primatte/primatte_main.html ). I like the tools for spill especially. You can download a demo to try it out. Also, when shooting make sure you light evenly. This makes extraction much easier.

====================

Hi,

I am opening my studio and will be shooting digital. For the
background, I prefer to plain color background and it comes down to
Blue screen or Green screen?

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thank you very much.

--
Happy Shooting...

------------------------------------------------
Another Nikon D100 Owner, pBase Supporter
.: http://www.pbase.com/donnyk :.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
--Albert Einstein

 

[Sailor Blue]

Blue and green screens were developed for motion pictures where the motion conceals and color contamination. As others have stated, light can bounce off the blue or green backgrounds and color contaminate the back edges of the subject unless the subject is a long ways from the background. I would use a minimum of 10' and double check at even that distance.

The other problem is that the blue or green will bleed through wisps of hair or translucent clothing. It is very hard to remove the color in these cases. Special green screen software does a pretty good job but that simply means you need to buy extra software in addition to your database and touch up software.

If you shoot against a gray background you eliminate all three of the above problems - bleed around the subject edges, bleed through translucent areas, and having to buy special software. You can do an excellent job of extracting your subject using Chip Springer's free gray screen extraction Photoshop action.

http://www.mediafire.com/?v3qsas23061ll

Chip Springer's Photoshop action will also work with a white background, but you must not overexpose the white background by more than 1 stop and keep the model at least 6' from the background or you will have problems with light bleeding around the back edges of the subject and also lens flare causing a loss of subject contrast.

 

[Lawrence Keeney]

My first seamless paper background was blue. I did a couple of shoots with it, and did not care for the look. I also had the problems the others have mentioned.

I switched to "super white", and "thunder gray" paper and I have never used the blue paper again.
--
http://www.lawrence-nv.us
--
Lawrence

 

[Keithm]

I have had great success with extraction using a gray screen. When I tried green, it wound up showing between small detail.
km

 

[ChrisBurch]

Your success at extracting the background from your images will be dependent on how much that color contrasts with your subjects, and specifically, what they are wearing. I find blue to be a way more common color in clothing than the bright greens used in most backgrounds. Regardless of which one you choose, you'll inevitably get a model with a color very close to your background color. That's why many green screen shooters have both colors on hand. Alternatively you could go with one green and one white background...you'll get lots of mileage out of the white one, even if you don't plan to extract the background.

There is software that does a superb job of cutting out all of the background, even if it's visible through hair and such. Trying to do it yourself in Photoshop will take you a long time in some instances. I've only used Darkroom, but I have seen ads for other green-screen software.

 

[Sailor Blue]

There is software that does a superb job of cutting out all of the background, even if it's visible through hair and such. Trying to do it yourself in Photoshop will take you a long time in some instances. I've only used Darkroom, but I have seen ads for other green-screen software.

Your right about the blue/green screen software, but as I said earlier it is an unnecessary added cost.

Doing as Lawrence Keeney suggested and using thunder gray and white backgrounds combined with Chip Springer's Photoshop actions can give you very good and very rapid automatic extractions at no additional cost.

Still photographers should leave green or blue screens where they belong, in video or motion pictures. They simply create unnecessary problems for the still photographer.

 

[Hugowolf]

This thread had been dormant for over seven years, and the OP hasn't posted anything for more than four years. Green, Blue, or Gray, it hardly matters any longer.

Brian A