Photography By Michelle

Archive for July 26th, 2010

Are you sick and tired of photographing (and viewing) the same old photos, over and over again? You’ve discovered that “green screen” is a route to go, except you do not truly comprehend it or even know much about it? Here is all you have to know to utilize it as a photography background!

First…What is it?

You will hear the labels “green screen”, “blue screen”, and “chroma key” thrown around and used to mean the same thing when discussing a photography background.

Chroma key simply could be defined as having a background which is one un-patterned, evenly lit color. The green and blue are the most typical hues. In fact, you could employ ANY color – however green and blue are easiest. I’ll make clear why that’s the case in a moment.

Green screen strategies can be employed during either video and still work. You photograph somebody in front of the chroma key then we later (or simultaneously working with high quality video cameras) you do away with the solid color and trade it using any type of backdrop you want!

It is the way your local meteorologist does the weather report. They’re standing in front of a green screen and the camera digitally deletes it and replaces it with the local weather map. They’re looking at themselves on a television monitor to find out where to point and so on. It’s perplexing and harder than you may think to be a weather reporter!

Secondly…Why use green or blue?

Typically we have a tendency to utilize green and blue since they are the farthest away from the colors present in skin tones. The technique was primarily done with blue, however as the standard of cameras improves, green seems to work more efficiently. It is easier to strip from the background, consequently most studios are changing to green. Nevertheless it doesn’t hurt to get them both.

An additional advantageous point for green is that it creates fewer apparel conflicts.

Considering that color is automatically eliminated and replaced, if the subject is wearing a shade of that color (blue) as part of their clothing…it will be replaced. You’ll frequently see shirts and ties that become peculiar appearing holes in the subject – showing through to the brand new background.

It’s even happened among blue eyes!

Green tends to bring about less of a apparel conflict, it’s a lot easier for your cameras to work with also it’s simpler to light evenly.

Flat illumination is crucial since shadows on the background will show in the final effect. This tends to destroy the realism of the photography background. And more, working with uneven lights, you’d obtain assorted hues of the color…some of which might not get eliminated correctly.

The 3 major types of chroma key backgrounds are: paint, fabric and paper.

Paint is useful if you have a studio using a cove and you do all your projects there…you’ll find it useless in the event you ever would like to shoot on location.

Paper comes in large rolls, but is easily torn and regularly needs replacing. This will get expensive in a hurry.

Fabric tends to survive longest and is movable. And fabric is simple to clean (dirty chroma key backgrounds don’t work well).

Any fabric supplier can provide some cloth which will do the task. Buy some and do some playing around with your photography background, any photo editing program can take out the color. Test it, you’ll enjoy it!