What colour background when taking photos

Deon posted:

Hi there,

I’m busy preparing to take pictures of our products to put on our web site. I want to take the pictures against a "blank back" ground so that I can change the background later on with PhotoShop. I have heard that it is best to take pictures against a bluesh back ground.

Blue or green are often used as the background for people because those colors are a good contrast to skin color and therefore easy to separate and change. By analogy, your background should be as different as possible from your product. Black velvet worked well for me when photographing blue-and-white objects.

—
MisterMax

http://buten.net/max/
Slideshows of Egypt, Jordan, Angkor Wat, Bali, Crete, France, Hudson Valley, Malaysia, Maui, Morocco, Mt Holly, Myanmar, Shanghai, Sicily, St Tropez, Singapore, Thailand, Tour de France.

http://pbase.com/mistermax – Shadows and Reflections

On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 15:50:50 +0200, Deon
wrote:

Hi there,

I’m busy preparing to take pictures of our products to put on our web site. I want to take the pictures against a "blank back" ground so that I can change the background later on with PhotoShop.
I have heard that it is best to take pictures against a bluesh back ground.
I will really appreciate your help.

Regards,
Deon

Are you using digital? If yes, why not making use of both options? Or even more? Digital film is cheap, and of course the colour of the products plays a big (maybe the biggest) roll.

Dave

Deon wrote:

Hi there,

I’m busy preparing to take pictures of our products to put on our web site. I want to take the pictures against a "blank back" ground so that I can change the background later on with PhotoShop.
I have heard that it is best to take pictures against a bluesh back ground.
I will really appreciate your help.

Regards,
Deon

Try to allow the items to separate, I use white mainly and allow the lighting to give the effect and a nice soft shadow. White does not create colour casts either, other colours will and black never seems to work for me for various reasons (reflections for one).

Dark backgrounds tend to create noise in digital photos.

You can deep etch the items and place them onto any colour if need be.

Thanx to the both of you for your replies; it helped a lot. Yes, I am going digital.
From what you say, the biggest thing is the contrast between the back ground and my products must be as big as possible. Most of the products I have to photograph, are black and silver. Will white as the colour for the back ground do?

Thanx again!
Deon

Dave wrote:

On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 15:50:50 +0200, Deon
wrote:

Hi there,

I’m busy preparing to take pictures of our products to put on our web site. I want to take the pictures against a "blank back" ground so that I can change the background later on with PhotoShop.
I have heard that it is best to take pictures against a bluesh back ground.
I will really appreciate your help.

Regards,
Deon

Are you using digital? If yes, why not making use of both options? Or even more? Digital film is cheap, and of course the colour of the products plays a big (maybe the biggest) roll.

Dave

"Deon" wrote in message

Thanx to the both of you for your replies; it helped a lot. Yes, I am going digital.
From what you say, the biggest thing is the contrast between the back ground and my products must be as big as possible. Most of the products I have to photograph, are black and silver. Will white as the colour for the back ground do?

White’s a good all purpose color. Here’s a black and "silver" item against a white paper background.
http://mike.russell-home.net/Gallery/norden/slides/NordenBom bsignt-0355.html

If your silver objects are shiny enough to be reflective, you’ll probably want some sort of light tent to control reflections.

The paper is in a continuous roll, so there is no seam. Another advantage of white is that it’s easy to keep clean looking – darker colors such as black and even dark blue, will show small specks of lint easily. —
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com/forum/

"Deon" schreef in bericht

Hi there,

I’m busy preparing to take pictures of our products to put on our web site. I want to take the pictures against a "blank back" ground so that I can change the background later on with PhotoShop.
I have heard that it is best to take pictures against a bluesh back ground.

I will really appreciate your help.

Regards,
Deon

Create a white transparant round backwall with light from behind. Do youre metering with frontlight only.
No take the picture with both lights on.
You will see that youre product is o.k. but the background is blown out. So no background at all!
Might need some adjusting with the lights. (more or less background light) kr
Aad

Thank you all VERY much for the tips you sent me through. I have learned a lot and will test it out.

Regards,
Deon

Aad wrote:

"Deon" schreef in bericht

Hi there,

I’m busy preparing to take pictures of our products to put on our web site. I want to take the pictures against a "blank back" ground so that I can change the background later on with PhotoShop.
I have heard that it is best to take pictures against a bluesh back ground.

I will really appreciate your help.

Regards,
Deon

Create a white transparant round backwall with light from behind. Do youre metering with frontlight only.
No take the picture with both lights on.
You will see that youre product is o.k. but the background is blown out. So no background at all!
Might need some adjusting with the lights. (more or less background light) kr
Aad

"Deon" wrote in message

Thanx to the both of you for your replies; it helped a lot. Yes, I am going digital.
From what you say, the biggest thing is the contrast between the back ground and my products must be as big as possible. Most of the products I have to photograph, are black and silver. Will white as the colour for the back ground do?

Thanx again!
Deon

if you will have to cut out a silver object I do not recommend using white same for black in the shadow ares it will matchyour product and be more difficult to separate later
look for green screen or blue screen on google to understand silhouette effects

Dave wrote:

On Wed, 29 Nov 2006 15:50:50 +0200, Deon
wrote:

Hi there,

I’m busy preparing to take pictures of our products to put on our web site. I want to take the pictures against a "blank back" ground so that I can change the background later on with PhotoShop.
I have heard that it is best to take pictures against a bluesh back ground.

I will really appreciate your help.

Regards,
Deon

Are you using digital? If yes, why not making use of both options? Or even more? Digital film is cheap, and of course the colour of the products plays a big (maybe the biggest) roll.

Dave