Black Background in Photoshop

[melinda_gaus]

<p>Hopefully someone can help me out here...</p>

<p>I quite enjoy the look of photos that have the subject situated against a totally black background. I've seen this done on portraits, with flowers, with animals, pets, etc. It's quite striking.</p>

<p>It seems most photographers (from a quick photo.net search) use some sort of black cloth background to help achieve this look. Positioning the subject on or otherwise in front of the black material.</p>

<p>Is there anyway to simulate this (while looking somewhat natural) in photoshop? I've seen photos of quite large animals (elephants, lions, etc) all on such backgrounds. I can't imagine people are bringing these types of creatures into their studios for such good shots! Are they using photoshop?</p>

<p>I would love to learn this technique. I am in a small one bedroom apartment and am, by no means, a professional. I don't have a studio or really any good space to get this effect. </p>

<p>If there is anyway to do this in photoshop, I'd be greatly thankful to know. I'm getting through a pretty thick book on photoshop now, so I'm just in the early learning stages. But is sure is a fun program!</p>

<p>Thanks,<br>

Melinda</p>

[howard_m]

<p>in its simplest form, you could just cut/mask the object and drop it onto a prepared document filled with black but IMO, that looks unnatural and disconcerting. is the background *really* 0,0,0 black or are there really subtle gradations and textures lurking (including some native shininess of the material) that need to be put into the composite imaging.</p>

[patricklavoie]

<p>i think they are bringing elephant in there studio..talking from experience : )</p>

<p>The best real background to use is a black velvet taht suck the suronding light like a sponge. Putting the subject further form it and using flash, only the subject will receive the light, so the background is not affected.</p>

<p>To do this in Ps, you will need a great and exeptional masking skill to make it look natural.</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>There are a number of techniques short of masking and replacement to render the background black.</p>

<p>(1) I have seen at least one photographer in a botanic garden use a portable backdrop consisting of a three sided box lined with black velvet. He used it behind a single flower in an otherwise cluttered background. It had a handle and dowels which could be thrust into the ground to hold it in place.</p>

<p>(2) Closeups in nature often have the subject in sunlight against a relatively dark background. The background appears nearly black if it is 5 stops or so under the main exposure. Using a long lens (200mm or more) gives you more control over this background due to the narrow FOV. This would work for zoo and circus photos too.</p>

<p>(3) If you use a flash for closeups in nature, you generate your own "sunlight" and consequently contrast against the background.</p>

<p>(4) If the background is consistently darker than any part of the subject, you can use Levels to adjust the black point, removing most or all features from the background. This is less likely to cause edge artifacts than masking.</p>

[peter]

<p>If you are talking about using a rear studio cloth to actually achieve this effect in camera it might be better not to use black cloth, but rather to use say blue or green one (on the bluescreen / greenscreen principle used by film-makers.) Then of course substitute any other color and or pattern in PS afterwards. PS would select such a uniform color more readily. But even if you did the selection manually, the bright blue / green would make it easier to select outlines of the main subject but of course may introduce a problem of its own - color cast.</p>

<p>Alternatively if working only in PS, you could of course mask the subject then use a variety of means to darken the background. Check out the first three photos (the statue's arm and the two of lily blossoms) in the link below. <em>(BTW if you stumble on this thread in a few weeks time my Flickr page may have changed by then!)</em> In each case I have selected / isolated the main subject then used a combination of brightness/ contrast adjustments and artificial vignettes to darken the background enough to make the main subject stand out. In each case though I have avoided making the backgound uniformly black which would be a bit boring in my view. But it could be done. The statue photo only had the bright blue sky as the background. I have made other variants of this image with a more uniform background but the variation looks better.<br /><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/80702381@N00/">http://www.flickr.com/photos/80702381@N00/</a></p>

[peter]

<p>Afterthought:<br>

Alternatively of course having selected the main subject in PS you could apply a separate texture (eg something that looks like a dark oily rag could work) and use this in a layer to place the subject against this artificial backdrop. Then I would apply a dark "grunge" border to the image to complete the composition.</p>