Shades of red (paper)

Has anyone here worked with red background paper?

I'm intending to purchase a roll, but I don't know which shade of red would be most effective. I'm tempted to go with plain, bright red, thinking I can always make it a wee bit darker by means of lighting, but I don't know if it'd be better to buy a darker shade in the first place, since the immediate project requires red but a wee bit more muted than the primary hue.

On the other hand, I'm wondering whether I can make a darker red brighter when needed by means of lighting without washing it out.

These are my candidates:
Bright red
Darker red

Any useful input is appreciated.

If the darker is what you need then I'd buy that first. Of course I'm a fan of dark reds so I'm a bit biased. Get what you know you need. See how it handles different light levels while you're shooting to determine if you like how it looks overexposed or not, as well as whether you get too much wrap when you over light it.

Hmm, good point. Wish I had paper samples to test with, but the stores here don't even have the paper in stock. At a hundred bux a roll, I better get the right one right off the bat.

The project involves shooting a statue with green 'clothing', not unlike this ones:

https://djcatholicgift​s.com/catalog/images/p​08ju-l.jpg
https://www.leafletonl​ine.com …7136e95/2/7/279​32_W_2.jpg

You see, the green is not RGB green, but midway between that and conifer green. I want to use the complementary for the background, and I was thinking that the 'flame' paper might be it, instead of the scarlet.

Have you thought about using gels on lights for your background? I recently watched a series on Creative Live, done by Tony Corbell. He explains that he just uses mid-grey backdrops and then if he wants a it to be a certain color, he just gels his lights accordingly. What he's actually demonstrating is getting the true color of the gel/light, reflecting off the background. He uses a reflective metering so he can maintain the actual color no matter if he uses a grey, white or black background. He will know what setting his light(s) need to be at to get the color he's wanting.

I just thought it might be a more affordable way to accomplish what you're after. Tony's results looked like he was using a vibrant blue sweep for a backdrop. Down side, you need a reflective light meter. I think he's using a Sekonic L-758, with a 1-deg spot.

Oh, I've used gels to colour backdrops, but they're not suitable for all situations. One such situation would be when the subject is standing on the background: can't colour the paper with a gel without also colouring the subject. In this particular case, the subject was standing on the paper:

Photo from Alveric's gallery.
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Photo from Alveric's gallery.