How do they do this?......

Dave450

Dave450

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I was in mothercare with wifey, and pixiphoto were in doing the baby photoshoots. Now with a baby on the way I had a nosey to see whats what.

Im not sure what software they used, but when they took a photo it imported into the catalogue. Simples. But it randomly changed the background colour! The real background was black, but the images were coming up with orange, red, blue, green, yellow etc etc backgrounds. How?
 
With a plain black background it will be easy to extract the subject from the background and replace it with anything, either another colour or another image.

Rgds
 
Digifrog said:
With a plain black background it will be easy to extract the subject from the background and replace it with anything, either another colour or another image.

Rgds
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Agreed, but this was an automated process!? They took the photo, and instantly the background was a different colour on the monitor?
 
The file is automatically moved from the camera to the computer and imported into their software. I think this automatically adds some processing (background changing) to the images and it also times the photoshoot so they know when to stop shooting as you only get so long in the studio.

I had a session with them 2 years ago and looking at the images now you can see where they automatically increased the exposure on the background on the computer to make it pure white, which blew the highlights around the subject. Having paid over £200 for the photos I upgraded my camera to an dslr and set about learning to take some myself and the results have been pretty good so far.
 
as siad whenits imported to the software it must make a layer mask and add different backrounds would love to know what the software is,
i have just brought topaz re-remask and this does the same but its all manual and does not take long, see my thread below.
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=292557
 
They may have software made for them, I'd be interested to see how it copes with a child wearing black....
 
There are several automated green screen plug ins and software packages I believe, but I've not seen it used on black screens....seems a strange choice to me. Probably a bespoke software package?
 
Black seems the weirdest colour to use for this? Lots of people have black hair and wear black clothes.... :thinking:
 
DekHog said:
Black seems the weirdest colour to use for this? Lots of people have black hair and wear black clothes.... :thinking:
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Agreed, I thought that at the time - but somehow it worked. Maybe where the hair was highlighted from the flashes it separates it from the b/g?
 
Did you notice if they were backlighting the people from both sides by any chance? It's the only way I can see it working successfully.....
 
DekHog said:
Did you notice if they were backlighting the people from both sides by any chance? It's the only way I can see it working successfully.....
Click to expand...


No just 2 flashes front the front - the backdrop was a good 4/5 feet away, if that makes a difference
 
they have gels in the flash unit behind the subject and no image editing is done, other than resizing and changing them to B&W or sepia.
 
touchMe said:
they have gels in the flash unit behind the subject and no image editing is done, other than resizing and changing them to B&W or sepia.
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....except he said there were no flash units behind the subjects, only in front.... :thinking:
 
he may not have seen it, but on black bacground shots, they use a flash between it and the box that subjects are posing on
 
I watched one at work near me and there was a 3rd flash on the floor behind the subject... hth
 
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