ive used a black cloth in a dark room lit only with minimal lights on the subject to aquire a black background..sometimes just a black cloth works well...my husband suggested that i use a big box painted black..havent tried that one yet....
unless otherwise specified in the challenge, no spot editing is allowed - however, you can use PS techniques that affect the whole image, such as the adjustment of levels and saturation
perhaps you might ask the photographer directly to share their method for attaining that 'amazing black' - then you could share it with us!
As long as no spot editing is used, you can shift colors or make a black background blacker. If you are using Photoshop, try using Levels and shifting the middle slider toward the right. OR use the Selective Color window, select the Blacks (and perhaps the Neutrals) and make them blacker. This will affect your whole image, but it is amazing how much you can isolate colors with the right tools.
i agree with playing with the levels in photoshop as others have stated, it works well.
Another thing, and this may not address what you mean, but I'll throw it out there anyway, deals with using the great outdoors for a good emergency black backdrop.
Compose your subject outside with no ambient lighting for a good distance (like a backyard for example), use the flash, and whalla - instant black background. (if there are still objects like a tree or something they will be far enough away and subsequently dark enough to easily "slide away" in photoshop.
It is in fact possible to have pure black background without any post processing. A deliberate one-stop underexpose can help you achive this. For example you meter a scene f/4 for 1/60th and you have a black background (paper or cloth) at a distance that it would be out-of-focus based on you current aperture.
By adjusting your exposure to f/4 for 1/125th will render the background pure black because you allow half the ambient light. This is a rather clasic slide technique that works well with backlit or toplit subjects. Good luck.
This site just keep on amazing me.. The responds here has been overwhelming. :-) Thank you very much for all the good answers!
I've got a lot of very good tips/tricks here, that I can play and work on. Hopefully, I'll one day manage to get the amamzing black that I've seen in some of these pictures.
I'll probably come up with more newbie questions as time passes, so bare with me. ;-)
Once again, thank you all for the good information and tips.
Terje
