a little white background tutorial

Andy · December 29, 2004

i was asked by a shy dgrinner to explain how i get the white backgrounds in some of my shots. well, the first step, of course, is well, have a white background :lol3 in my case, it's some large pieces of foamboard, and also some large white poster board. but this technique will work with any white background, really.

of course, there are ways to nail it with lighting at the time of shoot - but many folks don't have either the skill or the equipment to do this - so here's a way to get it done, "in post."

okay - for these balls of clay, i used a snooted 420ex flash unit (full power) off to camera left, and a 580ex onboard the camera (very low power), with a softbox attached. still, the clay balls are exposed properly, but the bg is really grey.

open the file in photoshop
choose select>color range
use the eyedropper and drag it along the full range of the grey background color
click enter
now, the background is selected
choose select>feather and try 2 pixels

do ctrl-j to put this selection in a new lary
now do ctrl-l and do a levels adjustment
drag the rightmost slider to the left until you've got white white

now, do your normal post routing .. adjust colors, any cropping, cloning, etc.

simple, eh? :shay

enjoy (a white white background) photography,

wxwax · January 3, 2005

I missed this. An excellent tutorial that can be used for lots of things. Off to the Hall with you!

chrisjlee · December 12, 2005

feathers are my friend
I never thought about feathering a color selection. Wow.

DanielB · December 12, 2005

its so simple i would have never thought of doing it.

you continue to amaze me andy

clovisguy · December 26, 2005

very useful, thanks much!
downloaded your image & followed steps as outlined. very simple...i would never have come up with this.

thanks.

HeldDown · January 22, 2006

Andy,
I know this is late and random, but this tut just saved my arse.

Sincerest mercis!

- Geordan

ziggy53 · February 17, 2006

Thanks so much Andy!

Another use for this technique is to "clip" a subject from the background. If you "Invert" the "Select", right before the Ctrl-J, you will save a copy of the subject to a new layer.

Now you can add a background of your choice:

P.S. Go here: http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=28023 to see the original shot.

kridpics · December 20, 2013

Is there a way to do this in Pixelmator?

Thanks

pathfinder · December 20, 2013

I am not familiar with Pixelmator, but a quick Google of "Pixelmator" led me to the home page for Pixelmator, and then this link about "Selections" in Pixelmator. - http://www.pixelmator.com/tutorials/image-editing-basics/selections-in-image-editing/

Selections by themselves are not too exciting, but when combined with Layers are quite powerful, and Pixelmator supports Layers also as shown here - http://www.pixelmator.com/tutorials/image-editing-basics/layers-in-image-editing/

There are a whole set of videos describing Pixelmator here - http://www.pixelmator.com/tutorials/image-editing-basics/

All this ability and only $29.95 for this in the OS X workspace

Welcome to dgrin and Happy Holidays.

Peano · December 20, 2013

Another alternative: After making the background selection, open a levels adjustment layer. The selection will automatically become a mask on the adjustment layer. Now make the levels adjustment to suit.

Advantages of this approach over copying background only (or subject only) to a new layer: You can adjust the mask on the levels adjustment layer (more or less feathering, expand or contract, change density, etc.), and you can also re-adjust the levels settings if need be later on. You can't do that if you apply a levels adjustment directly to image pixels.

This follows a general rule of thumb: When possible, avoid cooking edits into image pixels. If there's a non-destructive alternative -- in this case a levels adjustment layer with a mask -- choose that route.

a little white background tutorial

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