PBase

I am taking photographs of small craft items, diamantes, feathers etc, this is all for a new web site that I am having made. I have brought a lightbox, and this seems to work very well, but when I download the photos onto the computor the background is a grey colour, and not the white, crisp clean background that I am looking to achieve. Any suggestions and help would be greatly appreciated.

jackieo777 wrote:I am taking photographs of small craft items, diamantes, feathers etc, this is all for a new web site that I am having made.

did you hire a pro to write code for your web site?

jackieo777 wrote: I have brought a lightbox, and this seems to work very well, but when I download the photos onto the computor the background is a grey colour, and not the white, crisp clean background that I am looking to achieve. Any suggestions and help would be greatly appreciated.

did you use google for how to make a white background?

The light box is supplied with a white background, it is just when you take the picture the background looks grey, I am not sure what settings the camera should be set to, to achieve the crisp white background.

Do some googling about basic photography.

The camera's light meter is set in such a way that it thinks that the overall luminocity of the picture is middle gray.
If you make a photo of a white subject, the camera thinks it should be gray and underexposes. Therefore you have to make a correction, i.e. deliberately over-expose. How much depends on your subject, but the correction is somewhere between 1 and 2 stops.

Maybe the lighting is not enough so as to achieve the crisp white background that you aimed for. Try increasing the light surrounding the subject and if this is not possible, try to use flash and see if it works out.

Other than that, I believe you have to study the basics of photography like I am doing right now. Mastering on how to set the correct exposure under certain conditions is very essential in achieving good results when taking a photograph.

i'm just checking back to see if jackieo777 figured out a solution. this white background thing is one of many techniques that i teach. and yes, it is absolutely about exposure and camera control.

classes start in a few weeks. it's too bad you guys are off shore. tuition here is killer for non-residents.

Try and monkey around with your exposure compensation...we've got to do that all the time for snow pics up here...it's the same principle. The camera sees an averaged scene...as ernst says. Then if you get a color tint try monkeying around with your white balance and eliminate extraneous wild and uncontrolled light sources which can drive colors nuts. There are more exact ways you can do this...but this oughtta work OK for digital..

It's all about lighting. Basically, you need to expose your subject correctly and overexpose your background by about 2 stops. It's actually easier when your camera and lights are all on manual, so that the equipment is not trying to out-guess you.

Check out Lighting 101, on David Hobby's Strobist website. He's an excellent teacher.

Let us know how you're getting on...

The folks are correct about the exposure thing. I would suggest you study the "zone system" (google it and look for stuff from Minor White, Ansel Adams, Fred Picker - all are now dead) as practiced by many great film photographers in past years. We may have changed what we record our images on, but the principles have not changed. Having over four decades of film/darkroom experience has proven invaluable in my switch to digital. I am not yet anywhere near a digital expert, but I have used Photoshop to correct these problems after the image is created.

timjackson spelled it out in a nutshell - make sure your white background is at least 2 stops brighter than your subject. You can use flash, studio strobes or even workshop floodlights if you have too (and adjust the white balance afterwards). But the critical thing is to get your white background at least 2 stops brighter/lighter than your subject.