Photographing With A Chroma Key Photography Background!

Are you sick and bored with shooting (plus viewing) the same old photography, over and over again? You’ve heard rumors that “chroma key” is the way to go, except you don’t really understand it or even know a great deal about it? Here’s everything you must be familiar with to use it as a photography background!

Firstly…What exactly is it?

You will hear the terms “green screen”, “blue screen”, and “chroma key” thrown about and used to mean the same thing when discussing a photography background.

Chroma key merely could be defined as having a background that’s one un-patterned, uniformly lit color. The green and blue are the most used colors. In reality, you can actually use ANY color – however green and blue are best. I will explain why that is the situation in a minute.

Green screen procedures can be utilized during either video and still pictures. You shoot somebody in front of the green screen and then we later (or simultaneously working with high end video cameras) you take out the solid color and supplant it using any type of backdrop you would like!

This is how the local meteorologist does the weather report. They are standing in front of a chroma key and the camera digitally replaces it and replaces it with the area weather map. They are looking at themselves using a television monitor to determine where to point and so on. That’s confusing and more difficult than you may think in order to be a weatherman/woman!

Second…Why the colors blue or green?

Normally we have a tendency to use blue and green since they are the furthest from the colors present in skin coloration. The procedure was at first accomplished by blue, however as the standard of cameras changes, green seems to work better. It really is simpler to strip out of the background, so nearly all studios are switching to green. But it does not hurt to possess both.

An additional advantageous advantage for green is that it results in less apparel conflicts.

Since color is mechanically removed and replaced, if the subject is wearing a shade of that color (blue) in their clothes…it is replaced. You can often see shirts and ties that turn into funny looking holes in the subject – showing through to the brand new background.

It has even happened among blue eyes!

Green tends to produce less of a apparel conflict, it is a lot easier for your cameras to work with and it’s easier to light uniformly.

Smooth lighting is essential since shadows falling on the background will show in the end effect. This tends to destroy the realistic effect of the photography background. And, with uneven light, you would get various shades of the color…a few of which may not get eliminated accurately.

The three main sorts of green screen backdrops are: fabric, paper and paint.

Paint is nice for those who have a studio which has a cove and you do all your shooting there…it is actually worthless if you ever have to go on location.

Paper comes in big rolls, but is easily torn and regularly needs replacing. This can get pricey in a hurry.

Cloth tends to keep going longest and is transportable. Plus material is easy to wash (dirty green screen backdrops don’t work well).

Any material store can provide some cloth that should accomplish the job. Obtain some and do some testing with your photography background, any photo editing program is able to strip out the color. Take a crack at it, you’ll like it!