White backgrounds from grey

nikon.norm

nikon.norm

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Name
Norm
Edit My Images
Yes
Hi Guys – been lurking around the forum for a while and already had some excellent help and advise from Garry Edwards :) when I bought my Lencarta studio flash kit and am hoping that someone may be able to help with a problem that I have.
I’m using both Adobe Photoshop Elements 7 and the Nikon ViewNX2 packages to do PP, both are excellent in their ways, but I just can’t figure out a way to remove the grey backgrounds from my portraits (shot against pure white Lastolite background paper) and replace them with nice crisp white backgrounds.
Neither of the packages have any explanation as to how to do it and if anyone can shed some light (no pun intended) on this mystery I’d be eternally grateful.
Regards NN
 
First things first. If you had exposed the white background to be pure white, then you wouldn't need to do anything.

As a constructive suggestion therefore, light your background to blow out completely, then put your subject in front of it and light them as you feel is right.

I've not used Elements of ViewNX2, but if trying to do what you want to your shots in Photoshop I'd use the colour changing option to change that range of grey into white. It won't get it exactly right and you'll have some strange effects around hair for example, but it's worth a go if you can find a similar function.
 
With Elements, you could use the Magic Wand to select the background or, if it's easier, the Quick Selection tool to select the subject then invert it. Then add a Levels adjustment layer and use the white slider to blow the background to white.
 
thank you both for your help, I'll try both suggestions. Great forum - learning a lot
regards
NN
 
Tobers. Thank you for your advise – tried it out earlier this morning and it worked a treat:thumbs:, isn’t it easy when someone points you in the right direction !
It seems that the secret is not to overexpose the background too much as to allow the light to bounce back onto the subject. I feel another flash head could be winging its way to me from Lencarta – hope “she who sets the rules” doesn’t notice another parcel.

Garry. Both the editing packages that I have are limited in their use – mainly by the lack of reference material – basic tasks are simple but more advanced techniques are trial and very much error, I think another flash head is the way forward, however thank you for your response and help.
NN
 
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