What do you mean by a backdrop? Web background? Pattern fill?
Well, let’s say for example I wanted to take a portrait of someone. Currently I don’t have a fabric background for the subject to stand in front of. I think however that CS allows you to put an aritifical background in photos…that is what I am trying to do. Any tutorials on this?
My bad…I think what I am looking for is a digital background to use in place of a muslin. I also realize that these can be ordered on CD from a photography website. I think I may have just answered my own question. 🙂
You can take your own photos of anything you want to use as a background and save yourself the money.
If you have a shed-load of money you could try Digital Anarchy’s Backdrop Designer. I haven’t tried it so I don’t know if it’s any good, but I can see how it might be handy if you do a lot of portraits.
David
Try the following: Most backgrounds contain three to four mottled colors.
1. File> New.
2. Color Picker (pick two colors, maybe blue & brown).
3. Filter> Render> Clouds.
4. New layer.
5. Color Picker (this time, say maybe green & gold).
6. Reduce opacity to 50% or 40%.
7. Merge layers.
8. Filter> Add noise.
9. Filter> Blur> Gaussian Blur.
This all takes, maybe two minutes. Notes: If you only need two colors, you only need one layer and use Render clouds once. Other filters to consider are Difference clouds, Fibers, Texturizer (contains canvas), Brush strokes, and the Smudge tool, or even better is Liquify. Finally, to make it perfect, Filter> Render> Lighting effects (after you have added subject, but not flattened.
Im sure that some others here would do things differently, and possibly even better, but this works well for me.
Q
