Controlling Your Photography Background With A Chroma Key Backdrop!
Have you gotten to the point of being sick and bored with capturing (plus viewing) the same old photos, time and time again? You’ve discovered that “blue screen” is the path to go, but you don’t really comprehend it or even know a great deal about it? Here is everything you have to be familiar with to put it to use as a photography background!
Firstly…What is it?
You’ll hear the expressions “green screen”, “blue screen”, and “chroma key” tossed about and employed to mean the same thing when discussing a photography background.
Chroma key simply means having a backdrop that’s one un-patterned, evenly lit color. The green and blue are the most frequently used colors. In fact, you can actually use ANY color – however green and blue are best. I am going to make clear why that is the case in a minute.
Blue screen techniques can be employed during either video and still photographs. You photograph somebody in front of the chroma key and then we later (or instantly using high quality video cameras) you remove the solid color and replace it using any type of backdrop you want!
That’s how the local meteorologist does the weather report. They are standing in front of a blue screen and the camera digitally replaces it and replaces it with the area weather map. They are looking at themselves on the television monitor to find out where to point and so on. That’s confusing and harder than you might imagine to be a weatherman/woman!
Second…Why blue or green?
Normally we tend to utilize green and blue because they are the farthest away from the colors present in skin tones. The technique was at first done with blue, however as the quality of cameras changes, green seems to work more efficiently. It’s a lot easier to strip out of the backdrop, as a result most studios are switching to green. But it doesn’t do any harm to have them both.
One more advantageous advantage for green is that it generates less apparel conflicts.
Considering that color is automatically eliminated and substituted, if the model has on a shade of that color (blue) in their clothes…it’s always replaced. You will time and again see shirts and ties that turn out to be funny appearing holes in the model – showing through to the brand new background.
It’s even occurred among blue eyes!
Green tends to create not as much of a apparel conflict, it’s less complicated for the cameras to work with also it’s simpler to light evenly.
Even light is essential because shadows falling on the backdrop will appear in the final effect. This can ruin the realism of the photography background. And, working with irregular lights, you’ll make other hues of the color…some of which might not get removed properly.
The 3 chief varieties of chroma key backgrounds are: paper, paint and fabric.
Paint is good when you’ve got a studio which includes a cove and you do all your photos there…it is useless in the event you ever must shoot on location.
Paper comes in huge rolls, but is easily ripped and frequently needs to be replaced. This tends to get expensive in a hurry.
Fabric tends to survive longest and is portable. And fabric is easy to wash (dirty chroma key backgrounds do not work well).
Any fabric supplier can provide some fabric that can accomplish the job. Obtain some and do some experimenting with your photography background, any photo editing program is able to strip out the color. Try it, you’ll like it!