White backgrounds coming out as grey

[dotun famakinwa]

<p>I recently took a few pictures in my new studio setup. On my camera, the white backgrounds show up as white but when I view the pictures in lightroom or photoshop, the pictures come out in a dull grey color. I'm not sure what is going on - I do not think it is my white balance setting, because the pictures are rendered accurately on my camera's LCD - Any ideas????</p><div></div>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Never use your camera's LCD to evaluate, qualitatively, the success of the shot. Those displays are usually set to be too bright (so that you can see them outside in daylight) and will routinely give you the impression that your exposure is hotter than it really is. Use the histogram to get a better sense of things.<br /><br />More to the point, though: how were you metering? Remember: your camera has no idea that the background is white. In fact, it assumes that it's 18% grey. Studio exposures should always involve manual ISO, shutter, and aperture settings, so that you spare the camera from having to guess about what's going on.</p>

[Kent Shafer]

<p>Also, for the background to come out white it needs its own light—a lot of light. You may have to use two lights on the background to cover it evenly and make it bright enough.</p>

<p>FWIW, I like the light gray background in your picture. Pure white might be too harsh.</p>

[ben_goren]

<p>Dotun,</p>

 

<p>Just from looking at the skin tones, I’d say you nailed the exposure. The problem is as

Kent describes: not enough light on the background.</p>

 

<p>You can make the background go to pure white by blasting enough light on it, but that comes

with it the danger of spilling light back on to the subject in undesirable ways. Barndoors and a black

studio are essential.</p>

 

<p>If you have a big enough softbox, you can use that as a backdrop instead, and your spill

problems will be greatly reduced if not eliminated.</p>

 

<p>Or…it would be trivial, at least in this case, to mask out the background and force it to

solid white. Since my home studio has white walls (long story…), I wind up doing that sort of

thing a lot.</p>

 

<p>Cheers,</p>

 

<p>b&</p>

[dotun famakinwa]

<p>Thank you all for the very good information - I find this very useful. Matt, when in the studio, I use all manual controls.<br>

Ben, I went to review some pictures and it appears in quite a few cases the backgrounds were masked out to force them to a solid white.<br>

Everyone thank you very much for all the useful info</p>