black background problem

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santana007

Suspended / Banned
Messages
843
Name
Roger
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi

i have a problem with black backgrounds on my wed site ..

White look great and print great ..
But black can look blotchy on the web , but they print fine . So when a customer looks they are going to see a blotchy back ground ...... They used to look fine on the old laptop ,
Does anyone have the same problem or any ideas

cheers

Rog :thumbs:
 
Jayst84 said:
Post some examples mate. Sounds like it could just be JPEG compression for the web causing it?
Click to expand...

Hi

Cheers , here are a couple .. now when we set our laptop for printing they look fine and print fine .. but we noticed how different they looked on our other p.c screen .. So as people i.e customers have a different screen not set up as we do .... So many will see a blotchy background .. When printed the background is pitch black ..

4668617038_2da940609f.jpg


4668595618_5d0c8bd78d.jpg



Rog :thumbs:
 
Your background isn't 100% black though. If you crop just a section of the background you get something like this:

santana007_1.png


(This is the top left corner of the picture of the little girl)

Now when that gets converted to a jpg the lighter and darker parts which switch between black and nearly black.

You could do a colour selection and then wipe over the image with a black brush or mask it and do the same etc but that it why it is happening.
 
Here's a quick hack at it with curves (just in Paint.net, on a crappy computer with no real tools) to bring out the blotches on ANY monitor ;)

blotch-job-curves.jpg


(the second one is obviously blotchy on my monitor..)

Not good enough at this to say what's the best way to fix it, easiest I could think of is to tune the input black level so that everything below a certain intensity gets squashed to zero. It's going to run over some of your subject blacks though and not an optimal result at all.

Personally, I'd bring it up in Photoshop, magic wand select the background, make sure the hair isn't in it, maybe feather a bit and just crush it into black.

Now some pro can walk all over me, please :baby::lol:
 
Cheers guys

The thing is they print fantastic ... And on our laptop look fine and dandy .... But on another screen :shrug: ..

The annoying thing is having to do work for the web that dosn't need doing for printing :thinking:
 
That's because prints always lose detail in the shadows compared to looking on screen. Reflected light vs transmitted light for one thing. And laptops aren't the best screens in the world for photography. Some are pretty good, but far from perfect.

If you have the space, it should be easy enough to shoot so that the background is true black, rather than catching bits of light as it is now.

FWIW I imagine I prefer #2 as it is, rather than with a completely black background.
 
cowasaki said:
Your background isn't 100% black though. If you crop just a section of the background you get something like this:

santana007_1.png


(This is the top left corner of the picture of the little girl)

Now when that gets converted to a jpg the lighter and darker parts which switch between black and nearly black.

You could do a colour selection and then wipe over the image with a black brush or mask it and do the same etc but that it why it is happening.
Click to expand...


I think it might be the only thing to do :thumbs:

The flash heads will put some light on the background , so not giving a pitchblack look .. But as i say they print great ..

Rog
 
Jayst84 said:
That's because prints always lose detail in the shadows compared to looking on screen. Reflected light vs transmitted light for one thing. And laptops aren't the best screens in the world for photography. Some are pretty good, but far from perfect.

If you have the space, it should be easy enough to shoot so that the background is true black, rather than catching bits of light as it is now.

FWIW I imagine I prefer #2 as it is, rather than with a completely black background.
Click to expand...

which are the best screens ?


Hmm .. could it be i just had the subjet's too close to the backdrop .. I do have quite a bit of space .. So could move them forward .. I'll give it a try on the next one .. For now i'll have to burn it in
 
santana007 said:
which are the best screens ?


Hmm .. could it be i just had the subjet's too close to the backdrop .. I do have quite a bit of space .. So could move them forward .. I'll give it a try on the next one .. For now i'll have to burn it in
Click to expand...

That would be my choice. I finished my studio YESTERDAY :) but if I want seriously black backgrounds I can pop the lights out into the car park with great effect :)
 
I'm not great on (ie I know nothing about) computer technologies, but generally a good desktop screen is going to be better for editing than a laptop. Though it is something that some people get far too caught up in, considering most aren't doing fine art prints. Anyway, that's a whole other topic.

Yep, get them further away, and do whatever you can with the light direction, cutters if need be, etc to avoid the light falling on the BG. It's entirely possible to shoot someone in front of a white wall in the studio and have it appear as a black background.

In the meantime, I'd just use the burn tool set to shadows to tidy it up. (There are a million other ways, but that's my lazy way).
 
Jayst84 said:
I'm not great on (ie I know nothing about) computer technologies, but generally a good desktop screen is going to be better for editing than a laptop. Though it is something that some people get far too caught up in, considering most aren't doing fine art prints. Anyway, that's a whole other topic.

Yep, get them further away, and do whatever you can with the light direction, cutters if need be, etc to avoid the light falling on the BG. It's entirely possible to shoot someone in front of a white wall in the studio and have it appear as a black background.

In the meantime, I'd just use the burn tool set to shadows to tidy it up. (There are a million other ways, but that's my lazy way).
Click to expand...


Cheers

yep looks like the burn tool for now .. God i wish i was quicker and knew more about photoshop .. :(

Rog :thumbs:
 
Jayst84 said:
I'm not great on (ie I know nothing about) computer technologies, but generally a good desktop screen is going to be better for editing than a laptop.
Click to expand...

They are mainly using the same technology now. My Macbook pro has the same technology as my main desktop setup :)
 
I had similar problems a couple of years ago and I was using a good dell monitor. what i had to do was angle to screen away so that I could see all the shades of black properly, it was a bad thing to have to do so I got a much better monitor a HP ips one.

if you can find the specs of your screen and it has less than a 170deg viewing angle you will come accross this problem.

Also if they are looking ok in print that may seem a good thing but I dont think it will be, that means the prints are missing all the details in the black, which is fine if you want a black background but bad if you want subtle shading on your subject. it could also be that your prints are coming out a bit darker than they should.

Carl
 
What I'd do is ctr + j to copy the background then drop the exposure right down, layer mask it and brush out the couple/subject.


Fixing in camera is the primary goal though as stated.
 
mike weeks said:
If they are printing OK then all you need to do is a simple black point adjustment for your previews - Dont adjust the originals.

Mike
Click to expand...


Hi Mike

They print great .. they look great on our screen it's only when they are viewed on a factory set screen .. We are keeping the originals .. And will adjust the others just for the web .. How do we do black point adjustment ..

At the moment we are stuck with burning em for the web ..

cheers

Rog :thumbs:
 
To avoid this in camera I would move your subjects further away, it looks as if light is spilling on the background and thats what's causing the blotchy spots.
Also maybe try a higher shutter speed if your triggers/lights can sync higher.

Hope that helps

:)
 
X2_Studio said:
To avoid this in camera I would move your subjects further away, it looks as if light is spilling on the background and thats what's causing the blotchy spots.
Also maybe try a higher shutter speed if your triggers/lights can sync higher.

Hope that helps

:)
Click to expand...

Hi m8 cheers ..

yes i thing the problem this time might have been they were a little to close .. :thumbs:
 
santana007 said:
Hi Mike

They print great .. they look great on our screen it's only when they are viewed on a factory set screen .. We are keeping the originals .. And will adjust the others just for the web .. How do we do black point adjustment ..
Click to expand...

just set up a batch action in Photoshop

Mike
 
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