Anyone try green or blue screen for portraits?

Gary752

I haven't seen anyone mention that they use a green or blue screen for a backdrop when doing portrait work. While nothing beats using a real backdrop, some just can't afford to buy a bunch of backdrops. Depending on where you buy your digital backgrounds, you can buy a DVD loaded with around 2500 digital backgrounds for the price of just one regular background. At tubetape.com you can buy a comple studio or just parts that you need. I bought the background, background stand, the software used to combine the foreground image and digital background, and a DVD with 2500 backgrounds for under $400.00. The other day I had a friend take a photo of me with his P&S camera, without the green screen, and I painted everything around me green so I could test the software with the digital backgrounds. Here are a few of the results from the test.

#1.


#2.


#3.


The program is called Photokey 2, and it automatically removes the green background and replaces it with the digital background of your choice. I've also read that Photoshop can do this as well, but with a bunch of extra steps.

Feel free to comment on these, or just print them and hang up in your basement to scare off any rats you might have lurking around. :rofl

GaryB

ziggy53

It's been a few years but I had difficulty with lighting the background using a green screen with product photography. (Mostly product but a few tests with people.) You need to be very diligent about background lighting and it really means 2 lighting setups; one for the subject and the other for the background.

You can also do "luminance keying" which just means that the background has to be lighter than anything in the subject, or at least anything on the periphery of the subject. (You can build a digital mask for white areas inside the periphery.) The luminance key has less light poisoning of fine detail like hair, and spill light from the subject lighting is also less problematic.

Shadows from the subject are critical to keep off of the background for simple keying, meaning that head shots and head-and-shoulder shots are OK but full length shots are very difficult with either chroma key or luminance key, although the shadows were more convincing in my tests using the luminance key.

Andy has a pretty good tutorial which amounts to a luminance key with background removal, and a digital background could have been introduced:

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=46354&postcount=1

Gary752

From what I've been reading, a lot of people are using 2 of those work lights that have 2 halogen lights on a stand, one on each side, to light the background with great success. They say the key is to set the lights so that you get even light across the entire background, and removes any and all shadows cast by the studio lights for the subject, without blowing out the green. I am taking it that the different light source (temp) used for the background doesn't matter, because it will be removed and replaced with a digital background. I think the hardest part is getting the lighting on the subject to match the lighting used in the digital background so it looks natural.

I've also read that almost any green or blue non-reflective surface can be used as long as the green or blue is pure green or blue.

For someone who already has studio lights but no back drops yet, you could have a chromakey setup for around $200.00 or less. A pure green or blue bed sheet (about $2 or $3) pinned to a wall, with 2 halogen worklights to light it (about $40 to $45 for both), and Photokey 2 ($99.95). The only thing left would be the digital backgrounds. While you can buy them on a CD/DVD, you can also save some money and just take your own landscape shots and use them instead.

Disclaimer: I do not work for FXHome, nor get paid to advertise their product. I am just sharing some info on a program that I've found to be useful, and affordable.

GaryB

wxwax

ziggy53 wrote:

light poisoning of fine detail like hair

This is what I found to be almost impossible to eliminate. Splash back from the green screen. I wouldn't do it again.

Shot against a professionally-lit television green screen (Large piccies so you can see more of the detail in the hair:)

pathfinder

Is a white high key background easier to select and replace since it will not not introduce the the color problems, maybe?

ziggy53

pathfinder wrote:

Is a white high key background easier to select and replace since it will not not introduce the the color problems, maybe?

ziggy53 wrote:

... You can also do "luminance keying" which just means that the background has to be lighter than anything in the subject, or at least anything on the periphery of the subject. (You can build a digital mask for white areas inside the periphery.) The luminance key has less light poisoning of fine detail like hair, and spill light from the subject lighting is also less problematic. ...

Right. That's what a luminance key is.

With either luminance or chrominance key it is fairly important to have some separation between the subject and background. With luma-key you can often use some black flags to control some of the stray light from the background. With chroma-key you can sometimes use a rim light with a filter the inverse of the chroma-key which, in effect, neutralizes spill from the chroma-key.

Gary752

ziggy53 wrote:

Right. That's what a luminance key is.

With either luminance or chrominance key it is fairly important to have some separation between the subject and background. With luma-key you can often use some black flags to control some of the stray light from the background. With chroma-key you can sometimes use a rim light with a filter the inverse of the chroma-key which, in effect, neutralizes spill from the chroma-key.

Ziggy is right about the seperation between the subject and the background. With the green/blue screen, it is recommended that the subject be at least 5 to 6 feet in front of the background. While the following site is geared towards video and green screen, it also works for photography as well. That site is http://markapsolon.forumotion.net/ For a selection of instructional DVDs on green/blue screen, look here: http://http://store02.prostores.com/servlet/tubetape/the-Instructional-DVDs--fdsh--Books-cln-Photo--fdsh--Video/Categories or http://www.jerryday.com/store-LLAP-1a.html for a good video on lighting that not only covers green/blue screen, but also studio lighting. Hope this helps others contimplating giving this a try.

GaryB

Gary752

wxwax wrote:

This is what I found to be almost impossible to eliminate. Splash back from the green screen. I wouldn't do it again.

Shot against a professionally-lit television green screen (Large piccies so you can see more of the detail in the hair:)

I grabbed a copy of your shots and imported each into PhotoKey and added the same background (chosen at random) to all of them. Of the three, the only problem I seen was the grey hair of the first one. That one picked up a little more of the green cast of the background. That could have been reduced quite a bit if the subject was a little further forward from the green screen. I might have been able to tweak it a little more, and fixed the hair a little more, but I wanted to do these conversions without touching the original shots. The others looked pretty good as shot, to me.

GaryB

Gary752

ziggy53 wrote:

You need to be very diligent about background lighting and it really means 2 lighting setups; one for the subject and the other for the background.

Actually, other than needing lights to light the background, you can get away using what you already have in your camera bag. You just need to have the background evenly lit, and background smooth (no wrinkles). You can light your subject with a single flash and maybe a reflector, or with a 2 flash setup, which some already have. It has already been stated on the other forum I posted earlier, that you can also do this outdoors using available light to light the background, provided the background is setup at around a 45 degree angle to the sun, and using a flash and reflector to light the subject.

Also, as I said earlier, you could use just about any landscape photo for the background. I can see it now, some of the guys on here supplementing their income by advertising "Go on vaccation, without ever leaving home!" or "See the sights without ever leaving your hotel room!" The ideas would be limitless, and all you would have to do is add a green or blue screen to the list of equipment.

GaryB

fredjclaus

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'm looking at a couple programs that will do this for me plus, I'm testing out Paint Shop Pro, and Photo Shop to see how their background removal tools work. I think for the time being, I should just invest in the extra backdrops and shoot it right the first time for now.

Gary752

fredjclaus wrote:

Thanks for the tips everyone. I'm looking at a couple programs that will do this for me plus, I'm testing out Paint Shop Pro, and Photo Shop to see how their background removal tools work. I think for the time being, I should just invest in the extra backdrops and shoot it right the first time for now.

Don't forget to post the different programs you tried, and your comments on each one. I had tried quite a few, and I found that PhotoKey2 was the easiest to learn, and did the best job. That was the one I ended up going with. I got it through TubeTape.com along with my greenscreen, stand, and a DVD with a bunch of backgrounds. On a side note, the neat thing about chromakey is that if you have a friend that has a cool background that you want, but can't afford to get, all you have to do is take a photo of it! Any jpg will work as a background in chromakey!

GaryB

kelvin

I use the Green Screen Wizard Pro and CS4 Plug-in version. It's very simple to use and I have not had any problems with the background bleeding to the subject. Software with screen and backgrounds/overlays is under $200.00 Check it out!

Kelvin

bobmata

This is my try, using Adobe CS3

Gary752

bobmata wrote:

This is my try, using Adobe CS3

Looks good! How many steps did you have to take to get the finished result? With the program I now use, all I do is import the foreground image, and the background image into the program, and move a few sliders, or click a few buttons to suit (resize both images, mirror foreground image if needed, also most normal adjustments like, brightness, contrast, etc...), and then export. It also makes it nice if you have a lot of them to do in a short period of time, or if you just can't decide which background to use. I like this program because the process from start to finish is much faster, and more than likely, fewer steps involved. I'm not saying that any one program is better than another, just that the one I chose works better for me.

GaryB

bobmata

I got 3 essential steps on this. although it needs familiarity of the program (Adobe CS3). It will be easy because it's a repetition process. I like this technique because it retains the tiny hairs at the edges and that looks more natural. No new haircut.

1. Preparing the foreground
2. Inserting the Background
3. Reducing colorcast on the face and shoulder
4. other enhancements