Blue or Green Background Color?

B
Posted By
Bobby77501
Dec 2, 2005
Views
492
Replies
2
Status
Closed
I have several questions concerning blue or green background colors used for separating the foreground from the background:

1. Why blue or green?
2. Does it matter which color?
3. Does the shade of either color matter?
4. Whichever color, it usually spills over or reflects in the highlights of hair. What is the best way to get rid of this?
5. Have I forgotten anything regarding the background color of what to do/use to get rid of the spill over in hair?

Thanks………
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JJ
John John
Dec 2, 2005
+++Bobby "O"+++ wrote:
I have several questions concerning blue or green background colors used for separating the foreground from the background:

1. Why blue or green?
2. Does it matter which color?
3. Does the shade of either color matter?
4. Whichever color, it usually spills over or reflects in the highlights of hair. What is the best way to get rid of this?
5. Have I forgotten anything regarding the background color of what to do/use to get rid of the spill over in hair?

Thanks………

Here’s a good write-up of several commercial tools by Ben Willmore:

http://www.digitalmastery.com/companionsite/magazine/psuser5 3.pdf

Also checkout Primatte, I’ve used it experimentally and found it at a good price/performance:

http://www.photoshopsupport.com/tools/digital-anarchy-primat te.html

Top-tip, do the matting in 16bit for instant conversion, 8 bit is slower!

PS. Primatte deals with spill and hair very well.
SO
Sgt Owens
Dec 2, 2005
The color itself is not important, what is important is that it be a UNIFORM color that is different from the PERIMETER color of the subject. I frequently photograph people against white wall since these are pretty easy to find. As for your spill-over problem, I will assume that as a beginner you are using the Magic Wand to cut-away the background. You can likely solve that problem by setting the Tolerance level for the Magic Wand to a lower number. Also make sure that Contiguous is checked.

A low tolerance, say 12, means that Photoshop will select colors that are from 12 pixels lighter to 12 pixels darker than the pixel you clicked on (sampled). If your background is uniform in color then a low number like 12 will work perfectly.

Contiguous means that Photoshop will only grab adjacent pixels. In other words, if there is some of that color inside the subject it will not jump over non-qualifying pixels on the subject’s PERIMETER to get there.

Finally, remember that you can use all of the selection tools, along with the Magic Wand, to add or subtract from a current, sloppy selection.

Sgt O
—

"+++Bobby "O"+++" wrote in message
I have several questions concerning blue or green background colors used for separating the foreground from the background:

1. Why blue or green?
2. Does it matter which color?
3. Does the shade of either color matter?
4. Whichever color, it usually spills over or reflects in the highlights of hair. What is the best way to get rid of this?
5. Have I forgotten anything regarding the background color of what to do/use to get rid of the spill over in hair?

Thanks………

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