We just opened a studio at Geneva National this year. It has been a real blessing to our company and now that the weather has turned cold we are turning there more and more to do engagement shoots and senior portraits. It is certainly an adjustment to our preferred type of photography… on location. However, the advantages are soon aparent with the control you have over light and weather. Right now we use a white backdrop as our main background. We really like the way it draws your attention to the subject. But it also has the added advantage of changing the background very easily. Here is an example:
Here is an example of a changed background after editing:
Want to know how I did it? Follow these steps if you have Photoshop CS2 or CS3.
- Open the image to be edited. A white background or at least a solid background is preferred.
- Create a duplicate layer. (Layer/Duplicate Layer)
- Delete the Background layer (Use Layer Dialogue and right click on the locked background layer.)
- Open the texture or backdrop you want to merge. Select All/ Select Copy. Switch to the original photo then Select Paste.
- Open the layer dialog again and move the layer with your subject to the top layer.
- Now use the Magic Wand Tool and select the majority of the white space. (Set tolerance to 20 or 30)
- Zoom in and make sure that the area selected doesn’t include bright spots on the subject’s skin or clothes. If the selection overlaps portions you didn’t want selected follow these steps: Use the Polygonal Lasso Tool. Hold down the Alt Key and draw lines around the section you want to deselect.
- Once you have selected the proper portions of the image, right click and hit Feather. Choose between 3 and 6 pixels. Then hit the delete key to erase the white background. This allows the new backdrop layer to show through.
- Now zoom in and check the hair and surrounding edges of clothes etc to make sure you didn’t delete stuff you shouldn’t and didn’t miss portions that will make the photo look fake. (You will find that some hairstyles will make this process virtually impossible. But experiment with darker backdrops to make the bad hair day thing work.) You can use the eraser tool to make fly away hairs go away.
Here are some more versions of the edited image:
