Stuck Photographing with Black Background

[Jon Kerr]

How do you guys go about photographing with a black background?

I can take great photos using a white background in daylight, and using GIMP to white-out the background leaving only the miniature. I just take the models close to a window and snap away against a piece of white paper. Like this:

I've tried similar using a black bedsheet but it just isn't a dark enough background for GIMP to black out- and it stands out like a sore thumb on the photo.

What do you guys use for your black backgrounds, and what lighting do you use for black backgrounds? Is gloss black paper the way to go? Or maybe black felt? or just a sprayed black background?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Jon

[harbinger]

Try selecting by color and replacing the backdrop shade of white with black?

Or cutting the mini away and layering over solid black? Probably might aswell do this because youll most likely end up having to clean the edges anyway as selecting by color is not a exact science.

The lighting job on the mini itself will need to be quite good to keep it from over blending into background if using black.

[ispep]

Gradient backgrounds > solids. It will also depend on the colors of a model. A dark model will be very difficult to get a good picture of on a dark background.