Getting a white background: What I learned.

[vibin]

I recently had a chance to do my first product photography (purses, wallets,

etc.) shoot for a friend's small catalogue. Here is one trick I learned as a

first timer to get the back ground as white as possible.

 

I shot the products on top of a white posterboard in a room with fluorescent

lights and white walls. But the back ground still didn't look white in the

photographs. One trick I learned about making them look perfectly white, which

other beginners might benefit from, is the selective color feature in Photoshop.

 

To get the background as white as possible, set up a mask in Photoshop so that

you are only modifying the background, and not the product. Then under Selective

Color, choose White in the drop down box, and down below for Black, move the

percentage all the way to -100%. You might need to do this a couple of times,

but you will eventually get a plain white background.

[jean_marc_liotier]

<p>I'm currently also researching that sort of thing and I'll give it a try as soon as I find a way to obtain a few lights cheaply... Lighting your background correctly is supposed to save you that sort of post-processing step. In <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00GwcB">this photo.net thread</a> Paul Chaplo mentions : <i>"you have to get enought light on the white backdrop to raise it to a white just short of blowing it out / overexposing it. Thats high-key lighting. You meter incident then open up to your white point"</i>. There is more detail in this <a href="http://www.lightingmagic.com/bkgndqa.htm#High%20key%20background%20light">short explanation about how to obtain a detail-less white background</a>. But all that requires a light meter which I do not have. <a href="http://www.webphotoschool.com/Hidden/Lexar/Shooting_Product_Shots_on_a_White_Background/index.html">Another white background lighting method</a> proposes just setting a softbox behind the subject. This is much simpler that this <a href="http://adorama.webphotoschool.biz/The_Perfect_Light_for_the_Perfect_Portrait/index.html">complicated multi-light sources setup</a> which produces great results. But from what I have read I guess that proper studio lighting requires learning to use a light meter... So that is now on my shopping list...</p>

[beno_t_marchal]

<p>An easy solution is to place the product on glass and raise over a white background. The

glass gives you separation from the background enabling you to light the background

separately...

<p>--ben

[garry edwards]

An ingenious solution, but it reminds me of a story I heard which may or may not be true...<br>The American space programme spent millions on developing a ball point pen that could write upside down. The Russians decided to use pencils instead...<p>The 'pencil' in this case is correct lighting of the background - simpler, and far quicker than using a computer to correct a problem that needn't exist.

[jean_marc_liotier]

After my last post I went reading about light meters. It appears that in some situations the histogram from a digital camera can be used instead. There are many limitations to that approach but it is a good start - and it's cheap ! Two threads about that on Photo.net : <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00FUEc&tag=">"should I sell my light meter?"</a> and <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00BwBE">"Histogram vs. Light Meter"</a>.

[dave_powell2]

There's another simple Photoshop technique that I've used many times...usually to clean up old illustrations in technical documents that I'm updating for clients. Open the image's Levels histogram. Then slide the white point to the left JUST enough...and only enough...to turn the lightests gray tones white.

 

This isn't recommended for images where fine details are still visible in the brightest areas. But it has fixed many images for me!

 

Sincerely,

 

Dave