I had a chance to use my Manfrotto backdrop the other day.
It cost a bomb, so always happy to use it. The client was given a few options, going with green screen for options (cast portraits going into the productions programme with a picture frame style presentation).
I thought at the last minute that the Walnut side of my backdrop might also be an idea, so I pushed it through the stage door at rehearsals and got a “oh, that’s nice”, so Walnut it was.
I bought the Walnut and Pewter because it was the grey I wanted (very mild texture) and the Walnut appealed, but I was aware that both are cool in tone.
What I wanted, and this was the only option from their large catalogue was the texture choice. The Pewter is a very mild texture, almost nothing, but not nothing. The Walnut has an…. old wall in an abandoned house…. thing going on. I dislike regular mottle, obvious paint strokes etc.
Not a huge photoshop user, I was going to painstakingly paint the background with the brush in Capture 1 and change it. Not a huge job for a small shoot, bit of a pain for 50+ subjects.
Then Lightroom and C1 bought in auto masking of subject and background and stuff got real.
This is the base colour, cool wood with blue-ish undertones and a slight vignette (exaggerated here for final edit). Excuse the wrinkled t-shirts of the subjects. I shot in mostly darkness, the other option was strong fluorescence, and they were sharing a couple of pro T’s to hide uniforms etc. G9 Mk1 and 25 or 45mm lenses.
Reducing saturation is an easy fix, Still cool, but suits this subject.
Bringing out the texture, highlighting the background colours a little, but pushing the base olive (white balance shift and colour channels), gives me a much desired Olive tone version. With more depth of field, I could bring out more texture and colour.
Or I can go the other way and blur it out more for an almost medium format look. No doubt I can smooth and feather these better, but for now as examples they work well enough.
Wanting to give the client some variety, I treated each subject as an individual on their merits. Same background, only white balance shifts applied to the background layer.
Texture requires a background replacement, beyond my care level, but colour and therefore feel of the image is an easy fix.
With the rustic Walnut side, the clean Pewter and Grey/Black/white plain I have all I need really. Colours are then the tools that let these come alive.