I am using a black fabric for my background in the studio at the moment and I need an editing tip to darken it so you cannot see it in my prints. I can just burn it on dpc size files but this isnt working for full size prints. My question is, whats the best way to darken the background without losing any tone or detail with my model? I know how to make layers, and have tried using levels but then my model darkens, and using the eraser tool to bring her back leaves strange halos around her face/body.
If someone wants to help me, I would greatly appreciate it.
(like I said, its not the dpc size I'm having trouble with, its the full rez files).
If someone could email me or post step by step instructions here on this thred I would really appreciate it. Simple techniques preferred. LOL. I have a feeling I am going to need to do alot of this sort of editing and want to keep it fast/simple.
In a nutshell, you need to select the background, then load a levels adjustment layer with the selection on it and use levels to throw the BG to pure black. You do that by sliding the right arrow on the bottommost slider in the dialogue box all the way to the left.
The hard part is making a good selection. Hopefully you can do it with the magic wand and then the marquee selection tool to pick up stray pieces, but this doesn't always work smoothly. I do a lot of careful hand selecting. When you are working with models the hair can be a problem, but unfortunately I don't have any simple solution to that; I haven't done ANY people shots since I got digital that require this sort of BG manipulation. I am sure others will have some tricks...
you can also try selective color. in the black channel up the blacks. you will have to go back and erase a bit and the left corner will be a problem for you. You could put a vinette to help perhaps- that would be under filters> lens corrections.
good luck! :0)
Maybe try a curves adjustment. Make an anchor point just a little up from the black slider side so all the other values stay the same, and then bring down the the bar under that to adjust blacks only. My curves slider tool thing has a diagonal bar with the blacks on the left/bottom and the whites right/top. Then do incremental adjustments like that until you have most of the area black.
If you have psp 8 you can do a manual color adjustment and bring down the darks pretty good without affecting the other colors.
It seems to me that you have too much light spilling onto your black background. Move the model farther away from the background so that you can light her without having the light hit the background as well. It is problematic that you are using part of the same cloth to cover the stand that the scales sit on. I would suggest changing that somehow.
As for the pics you have already taken, I accomplished this in about 2 minutes by creating a duplicate layer, then doing a feathered selection around the model (so the effect is not so obvious and does not have to be perfect), then selecting the inverse (background) and then used shadow/higlight and levels controls. I then used the eraser tool to erase the effect from the chain of the scales etc so that they looked brighter.
What works best for me is to use curves. You pick the lightest zone of black with the black eyedropper that you find on the right hand corner and that should make everything black (even your subject). Then, using layer masks (not the eraser) you paint black on the subject and she will get be back to original. You can play with the opacities of the brushes when you paint her black to avoid the halos.
