Gray or white seamless?

Hi All,

 

Hoping I can bend your ear on this conundrum I'm dealing with.

 

I'm shooting tons of products for a home goods site revamp, and they expressed wanting to move away from a "floating" pure white background to something that looks more natural (they still want the background color to be 100% consist from photo to photo). I used my white seamless paper for the first round of about 300 images and edited them to grey the background and bring in some shadows, but I'm thinking that shooting on a light gray backdrop to begin with would've really cut down on my editing time, as I could just expose everything properly instead of having to tweak the background color in post.

 

They're happy with the results, and want to keep the images looking the same (see attached) moving forward, but I'm wondering if it's worth it to switch over to a gray backdrop color now that I've gotten my editing process down?? Also, not sure I'll be able to color correct the new backdrop to perfectly match the last round of photos...

 

Would you switch over to using a gray backdrop??

 

Sorry if that was a convoluted question. FYI, my set up for most of the shoot was 2 alien bees D800s with soft boxes to light the backdrop, then 1 D800 bounced on a foam core board onto the product (or just positioned overhead). I have a Canon 6D and 50mm f/1.2 tethered to my MacBook with Lightroom.

 

Thanks a million!!!

 

 

I'm a huge fan of working with grey backdrops. - The ones I got are more or less greycard like. white would be lethal in my case; there are lots of white paper products to shoot for me.

Sorry; I know close to nothing about post processing, to back my opinion with. Since I am working for a printshop there are more skilled others to deal with that. In general the grey backdrops are considered quite versatile. - I belive you'll find youtube videos where Joe Edelman recommends them. - Of course you get a different situation with products you are placing on seamless. I also don't understand how a backdrop might matter a lot if you end editing it for every shot anyhow. - In other words: try hard to find a grey you can stick to.

While grey is great for exposure & neutral to the colors of the subjects it can get a bit depressing.

I've found that blues or even reds are kinder on the eye & give a more "upbeat" feeling to the images.

Why not try using a light with a colored gel to light just the background? Your white can be any color.

You could even shade the gel for a shift from white to the color of your choice (or maybe even 2 from opposite angles.)

I haven't dealt with colored backgrounds. - I'd worry about them spilling color on my subject when I light it from above.

You could even shade the gel for a shift from white to the color of your choice (or maybe even 2 from opposite angles.)

Separate the background by distance & it won't be a problem

Thanks so much you guys! All great advice. I went ahead and stuck with white this time around. For the most part I'm able to give the items enough distance and light the background to make for easy masking when post-processing. I tried Savage Grey Tint paper and it even still read darker than the super light grey I was trying to get close to on the client's website header (as in the images above). It's nice to get some feedback to know if I'm doing something terribly stupid or just overthinking what's working fine for me. :)

No such thing as over thinking. 1/2 of today's problems are caused by not thinking it through.

Thought for you.

"What is under-exposed white"?

Hmmmmmm?