Hello,
after a long break, I return to macro photography ...
at the moment, i am grinding skill and technique of doing studio stacks
but my first feelings are that I have quite a boring light ...
and even more boring I have a background .. tell me how you can achieve such a good contrast against the background - a kind of gradient - or smoth fade between the colors
Currently, I light up photos with two flashlamps and two layers of tracing paper
here is some example of my photos:
boring background - how to pop it ?
Moderators: rjlittlefield, ChrisR, Chris S., Pau
Here's my set-up
Gear1 by Nguyen Kelvin, on Flickr
And here's my photostream: https://www.flickr.com/photos/catchsoul/. All native backgrounds (Non-Photoshop retouch).
Gear1 by Nguyen Kelvin, on Flickr
And here's my photostream: https://www.flickr.com/photos/catchsoul/. All native backgrounds (Non-Photoshop retouch).
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- Posts: 130
- Joined: Fri Jun 10, 2016 11:33 pm
First, amazing how clean his/her eye is
I'm working with an especially well kept collection right now and very few of the bugs are in such excellent condition...even after my best efforts at cleaning!
The lighting on the fly(?) seems good.
Re the background, is it the paper with some tape(?) on it? Since DOF is so small, even a relatively close background is very blurry. Play with the distance and texture of the background if you want it to not be just a pretty smooth colour. Maybe glue something (dirt, glitter, whatever) to a paper. Or just draw different shapes and colours with sharpies, etc. and play with the distance to see what it looks like.
You can experiment with just the background first, then add the bug.
I'm not sure how you stack, but see those transparent hairs and some small halos? If you use Zerene, they have an excellent tutorial on their website on how to deal with that. If it's another software, maybe they have good ways to fix it too (I've heard Helicon is good, not sure about Photoshop).
I'm working with an especially well kept collection right now and very few of the bugs are in such excellent condition...even after my best efforts at cleaning!
The lighting on the fly(?) seems good.
Re the background, is it the paper with some tape(?) on it? Since DOF is so small, even a relatively close background is very blurry. Play with the distance and texture of the background if you want it to not be just a pretty smooth colour. Maybe glue something (dirt, glitter, whatever) to a paper. Or just draw different shapes and colours with sharpies, etc. and play with the distance to see what it looks like.
You can experiment with just the background first, then add the bug.
I'm not sure how you stack, but see those transparent hairs and some small halos? If you use Zerene, they have an excellent tutorial on their website on how to deal with that. If it's another software, maybe they have good ways to fix it too (I've heard Helicon is good, not sure about Photoshop).
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- Posts: 870
- Joined: Tue Oct 23, 2012 7:01 pm
- Location: North Olmsted, Ohio, U.S.A.
- The image itself is excellent. I've rarely come even close.
- If your actual concern is the drabness of the background, light the background separately.
I've done a lot of reading recently on still life technique, and one of the common techniques for bringing backgrounds to life is to specifically light the background as an element in its own right. You could use either continuous light or a flash to do this.
I suggest that you watch a few videos on still life and product photography for some ideas.