Photoshop Creative

This weekend I came across this awesome tutorial on how to set up and shoot against a white seamless background. If you desire to learn how to shoot trendy shots on all white I can't recommend this tutorial enough!

http://www.zarias.com/?p=71

That got me excited, except, I don't have any White Seamless paper, so I used some bed sheets, and my daughter happily volunteered to be the model, not to mention the dog insisted in being part of the shoot. Note: I didn't expect to get the same results with sheets, however, I got close enough that it didn't take much effort to select the surrounding whitish sheets and then fill with pure white. Notice the white hanging behind her is almost blown out without detail, that is what you want. A seamless white environment. I need to work on the lighting for the floor as well. Work in progress.




Here is a shot I took later using the same technique, however, very little effort was required to fill with white as there was only white sheet behind the head shot.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/skyfisher/ ... 5/sizes/o/

My goal is create an image with all white background requiring almost no touch up to the background.

For those who scrapbook a lot, a set up like this makes for ideal images you can easily drop into any background.

wow i love them both.

Those are excellent, skyfisher!

Very nice! Thanks for sharing the link. I'll give it a try too!

Thanks for the great tip. Will have to give it a try.
Chas

Another great benefit is that you can throw in some simple but beautiful color gradient and change it at your whim with the hue control. Create a new bg above the target layer, set blend mode to Darken.

Thanks for the link, am going to have to try that

The "secret" to pure white background is to have the back ground over exposed by 1 to 2 Fstops. If your camera is set to F-8 then you set the background light(s) to F-16. You can use one or two Nikon SB800 flashes to accomplish this using the camera flah to trigger them. The important thing is to avoid light spill. This is to avoid the B/G light fall on the subject. To prevent this you use two GOBOS ( go between) I use two pcs. of 20" x 24" black foamboard as gobos for small flashes but for studio I use whole sheet of black foamboard on a light stand.

You can change the white B/G color by using filters on the B/G lights or by moving the lights further fron the B/G or by changing the background exposure reading. You can even make the same white B/G from gray to black by separating the subject from it and using no light on it.

Skyfisher, you did an excellent job on you beautiful daughter pictures.

dondiego wrote: The "secret" to pure white background is to have the back ground over exposed by 1 to 2 Fstops. If your camera is set to F-8 then you set the background light(s) to F-16. You can use one or two Nikon SB800 flashes to accomplish this using the camera flah to trigger them. The important thing is to avoid light spill. This is to avoid the B/G light fall on the subject. To prevent this you use two GOBOS ( go between) I use two pcs. of 20" x 24" black foamboard as gobos for small flashes but for studio I use whole sheet of black foamboard on a light stand.

You can change the white B/G color by using filters on the B/G lights or by moving the lights further fron the B/G or by changing the background exposure reading. You can even make the same white B/G from gray to black by separating the subject from it and using no light on it.

Thank you Don, she is not always pleased with my results but she really liked these especially the lip gloss image - she wanted something that looked like a model in an advertisement and I think we pulled it off
You are right on in your comments regarding what it takes to get the exposure and lighting correct including the GOBOS per what I learned from the tutorial. The author shows some examples of the flexibility of using an all white background, including setting it up to become all black based on your exposure and lighting, as you mentioned.

And may I say, you have a very impressive collection of very nice cameras, you clearly have a wealth of experience. Some time soon I'm going to have to get your advice on improving my color matching when I print - I think I need to get a device to calibrate my monitor and more ICCs for my printing papers.

Excellent results, Skyfisher. Thanks for the tut link.

Anita