digital background in studio

[arpi]

I wonder if there is a specially made single background that can be used to digitally modify it and change it by means a program. I know that I can use intelligent scissors and then copy-paste but maybe if there was a special background that would make that easier I would not have to buy lets say 2000 different backgrounds. This is to be used with studio shots (headshots, glamour, etc). If there is one, would it be as good as a real paper-cloth background? what is the best background (paper, cloth, digital, etc) in terms of results.

Thanks

[Baadil]

Digital backgrounds are good way to minimize cost of real background. Usually you use a solid color background when taking shots. This helps to easily seperate poeple from the background so that you can place a different one. These solid colors are usually Green or Blue screens.
Here is a good link for backgrounds as well as for Green/Blue Screens.

http://www.owens-originals.com/cdrom/digital-backdrops-on-cd-rom%20.html

[MCB]

Usually you use a solid color background when taking shots. This helps to easily seperate poeple from the background so that you can place a different one.

Right. Then you don't need "smart scissors" or a time consuming manual selection process. You select by color. So ideally your background would be made up of a color not found in your subject. But a little manual editing of your mask is much easier than trying to extract the subject from some random background. But even with a nice solid color background it helps to have good lighting on the background. If the lighting is uneven, you'll have bright areas and dark areas that aren't quite the same color. That can complicate things a bit, so good lighting to start with is good when possibe. It's always possible to extract your subject manually, but that's awfully time consuming if you have a lot of shots to process. I've had to do this with video, and believe me, planning ahead really pays off. :)

[arpi]

thanks

the pictures in the website link provided above are too small for me to tell if the pictures are any good. I don't have any backgrouds yet and I don't know which one to get. what is a 'muslim' background?

TX

[RTMiller]

thankswhat is a 'muslim' background?
A muslim background would be if you stood in front of a mosque and took a picture.
A muslin background is a cloth background that you hang behind your subject in a studio (I'm sorry but I'm feeling like a smarta** today).

[Baadil]

Typically, your real backgrounds are made out of Muslin cloth. Most likely you will buy your Green/Blue Screens made out of this cloth.
Yes the pics on the link are small because they want you to buy them before you can use it. They do however say that they will give you high res images.

You don't have to buy them initially if you do not want to. Just use the screen of your choice and then try any nature image or a texture as the background to learn.

[Gary_E]

Has anyone ever tried using a multimedia projector to display a background behind a subject?

[Baadil]

I have never tried it but I would think that it would lose colors once you light your subject.

[Curtis N]

when you see the weatherman on TV standing before a changing weather map, that's chromakey (or similar) technology.I once met one of the local TV weatherbabes. She was explaining about the "green screen" she stands in front of. I dared her to do the weather some night in a green bikini, but so far she hasn't had the guts.

[jforget1]

This is an interesting idea instead of buying a ton of muslins. Do the final images look "digital" or do they look similar to a regular background?

[tim]

A muslim background would be if you stood in front of a mosque and took a picture.
A muslin background is a cloth background that you hang behind your subject in a studio (I'm sorry but I'm feeling like a smarta** today).

lol, nice one :)

Good idea with the green background, though I wonder how effective it'd be. The problem I have is extracting people with flyaway hair from a background, even if the background's solid even white. Maybe with green you could do a color select and it'd work better. I don't have any studio experience, but i'd prefer to get it right in the camera, it saves a LOT of post-processing time.

[Gary_E]

Rear projection screens have been around for a pretty long time, but i think that the Chromakey technology became so much cheaper that I imagine that the rear projection screen just isn't economically practical anymore.

I don't know this to be true, so take it with a grain of salt.

I do know that the Chromakey technology has been used by television for probably over thirty years. You probably know this--- when you see the weatherman on TV standing before a changing weather map, that's chromakey (or similar) technology.
can you fill me in on chromakey?
I am interested in doing portrait work using umbrellas/sunpak 300 w monolights but I would like a way to use other backgrounds w/o having to use photoshop or carry different backgrounds..

[PhotosGuy]

Has anyone ever tried using a multimedia projector to display a background behind a subject? There was a front projection system back in the '60s that would return 90+% of the light back to the cam on a 1-degree axis. Problem was that it was really tricky to light a car without getting some spill on the screen & art directors all wanted to go to the West coast on location & didn't care about the cost savings. Also, it was hard to find the right background with the right lighting, so if you had to go there anyway, you might as well take the car & AD, too.
It wasn't a bad system for small product pics, but was a VERY expensive system at the time. For people, it just wasn't bright enough for action shots as you'd be down to an exposure in the seconds.

[RodBarker]

Hi
I come for a background of 3D computer graphics and compositing with Photoshop and Im now going the photographic route as a hobby and having a lot of fun , I see lots of threads in these forums where people go to all sorts of lengths to set up lighting and backgrounds , seems a lot of trouble to get effects that can be done in post very easy and quickly with your computer , I really think the guys could improve there photography 10 fold if they would only learn PS as best they could .
For digital backdrops -

Chroma-keying software
http://www.digitalanarchy.com/primatte/primatte_main.html

Background designer
http://www.digitalanarchy.com/backdrop/backdrop_main.html

Rod

[arpi]

Hi
I come for a background of 3D computer graphics and compositing with Photoshop and Im now going the photographic route as a hobby and having a lot of fun , I see lots of threads in these forums where people go to all sorts of lengths to set up lighting and backgrounds , seems a lot of trouble to get effects that can be done in post very easy and quickly with your computer , I really think the guys could improve there photography 10 fold if they would only learn PS as best they could .
For digital backdrops -

Chroma-keying software
http://www.digitalanarchy.com/primatte/primatte_main.html

Background designer
http://www.digitalanarchy.com/backdrop/backdrop_main.html

Rod

Hi,

Thanks for the input. I found a free windows program here (download link at the end of the page).

http://www.stack.nl/~stefanvz/bsol/

the info came from this thread where ther is a free tar ball:

http://forums.facepunchstudios.com//showthread.php?t=34228

they say that the photoshop plugin is the same as the MagicWand but I use The Gimp. there is a small photoshop tutorial for chromakeying in that page too.

this is a small reference link about chromakey

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chroma_key

if anybody knows more free chromakey programs, post the links here


Cheers

[arpi]

another but for video. don't know if it works in jpegs

http://students.washington.edu/natetrue/ntcom/programs/masterkey.htm

PS: I don't know how these freebes compare with the expensive ones. nothing tested.

EDIT: this is a small PDF link for photography lighting and chromakey
http://ourworld.cs.com/TX%20Belger/Chromakey+Backdrop+FAQs+for+Photography.pdf

[Gary_E]

any tips on how to deal with a womans hair in photoshop when your going to replace a backbround?

[arpi]

any tips on how to deal with a womans hair in photoshop when your going to replace a backbround?

maybe put a small hidden light behind the subject so that it lights up the edges of the hair and separetes it from the green background.

[RodBarker]

I don't know how these freebes compare with the expensive ones. nothing tested.

I think you will find that they wont stack up if you want the real hard to get fine results like through glass or transparent objects and fine hair , the magic wand tool and masking will not get these type of keys without a very fiddly labor intensive imput , where the 3rd party keyers have spill supression tools etc that allow very fine tuning quickly .
The trick to a great key is the green or bluescreen and how it is lighted with flat no wrinkles , no shadows and 100% color saturation , if you meet these you can put someone in any background in minutes perfectly , hollywood has been doing this for years only now they are making complete movies , Starwars is 95% green screen footage composited on computer backgrounds , its pretty much the way its all going , I think a lot of the old time traditional photgraphers heads would spin if they only new what could be done digitally , perfect bokia , light painting that would take hours to set up in the real world , barrel distorion , color correction , perfect exposure the list goes on and on all done perfectly inside Photoshop very quickly , the best bit of kit in your bag is not that 1Ds or that swag of L lenses you have , believe it not its Photoshop , all you need to do is learn some of its magic .

Rod


PS

any tips on how to deal with a womans hair in photoshop when your going to replace a backbround?

The best way is a good keying program and good image to work with , if you dont have that then its really down to the long way around cutting the hair and fine detail by hand , a real quick and dirty method to get to the nitty gritty is to place the shot you want to key on top of a background image in the layers stack , then select the shot to key and quickly cut it out with the selection tool somewhere close to your models edges , dont be fussy fly around just dont touch anything of what you want left , now you should have some sort of polygon shape of you model with the background showing through what you just chopped out .
To photoshop and masks - black is transparent - white is opaque !
Now while still on the model layer select add a layer mask from the bottom of the layers pallet .
Now you have a mask on the model layer , click on the mask itself in the layer stack an outline will appear around the mask ( mask should be white if its black change it to white ) .
Now select your brush tool and paint with black on your model , you have the full range of brushes and opacitys to just wash away what you dont want by zooming right in and painting allowing extreme fine detail , I use a wacom tablet , it allows you to paint in photoshop like you are drawing , you use a pen and draw on a tablet on your desk and it transforms on screen in absolute realtime and its pressure sensitive so you want darker you press a little harder just like you draw they are a great tool and quite cheap now , I would be lost without mine , a mouse is just not the same for this sort of work .

Good luck

[PhotosGuy]

Where was the projector? Was it in a pit below the set or was it above the camera like in a movie theater? The projector was below cam level shooting up into a beam splitter, so after the adjustments, the projector & cam lenses were on the same axis. (You hoped!) ;-)
You couldn't use wa lenses with it, & color balance was a PITA, too.

[arpi]

Hi,

Thanks again for your help. The price of the plugin is $300. I wish it were missing one zero from the end = $30. But a high price can be misinterpreted, paying high does not mean getting more. Do you know how this plugin compares to corel knockout V2? is there any review of this program that compares it with others?

TX

[RodBarker]

Hi

Primate for solid saturated backrounds is very fast and suits my workflow , I found Knockout way more complicated and the last thing I need now is learning another program :)
To say whats best I carnt they both do remarkable jobs your best bet is to try both trials and see what suits your needs , if you are only doing a small number of images I would cut them out by hand using a wacom tablet .

Rod

[Baadil]

Does anyone know of a site or two that has lots of kids friendly free digital backgrounds? I am talking about the ones you see in Wal-Mart style portrait studios.

Thanks.

[arpi]

Hi,

OT: last night I went on a shopping spree and I bought corel knockout V2 at ebay for $35 and photoshop CS2 for $180 (from a company with over 1500 positive feedbacks), I use The Gimp so far. Then a 2500 dvd full of backdrops (with lots of muslins and other stuff) for $25. I still had extra money to buy a the book "Adobe Photoshop CS2 for Photographers" before I hit the $300 mark :p

$35 CorelKnockout V2
$180 Photoshop CS2
$25 2500 backdrops
$29 book
-------------------
$269 total

Cheers

[jforget1]

Then a 2500 dvd full of backdrops (with lots of muslins and other stuff) for $25.

Where did you get the DVD of backdrops from?

[arpi]

Where did you get the DVD of backdrops from?

Hi,

I got it at ebay and I've sent you a pm with the sale link. It can be found easily for $50 but I looked at the end link of the ebay search (newest deals) and I found it buit-now for $24.99

this is the same DVD

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=7527294590&category=30079&rd=1

notice that it has a buy-now for $78 but mine was the same DVD but with a buy now for $24.99. I guess I was lucky at the time.

Cheers