4 replies to this topic

[sxyloverboy]

In This Tutorial i will show you how to make your own Studio without any professional equipment. This only works for black and white background pictures.

What you need is.

-*- A black or white cloth and the size depends on what you want to photograph.
-*- Some Lights.
-*- Cardboard
-*- ALuminium foil.

As you can see these items are not hard to come by and most of us have them in our house already. SO the first thing we need to do is make the stuff that we need. Get out your cardbord. This will be used as a reflector. Now get some aluminum foil that is a bit bigger than than the size of your cardboard and wrinkle it. Now tape it onto the carboard box. MAke sure not to tape it to tight because youll want room to bend it later.

Now you have a reflector. make as many as you think you might need.

Now you can start setting up your studio. spread the cloth as wide you can and you may want to iron it a bit to make the wrinkles less. When you do this think about from what angle your going to be photographing your person or item. Your going to want the thing to have a white background around the whole thing if you know what i mean. Like if your photographing a person you dont want to have half of the head not have the canvas behind it or its not going to work.

Now set up the person or object your going to be photographing( from now on ill only say person. if your going to be photographing some object just replace person with object or somehting like that to make the sentence make sence.) Set some lights up around the person and move them around till you find a lighting that you like. If you only have one light you can use the reflectors to light up some area that cant really be lighted with the light from where it is by using it a bit like a mirrow to shine some like from a lamp to the person.

If your shooting in dark lighting i suggest a tripod so you dont get a blurry image.



Now after you get some pics thats your happy with upload them to your computer or another picture editing program. Remember the screen doent have to be black all over. just around the thing that you photographed. I'll be continueing from now in for photoshop but just read it if you have a diffrent program and find the menu things that have the same stuff( does that make sense? )

Make a new Levels Adjustment Layer. Layers --> New Adjustmentlayer --> Levels. Now click on a thing that says Set Black Point. Click around on the black cloth till you get the blackness as you like it. If you photographed using a white cloth or somehting like that.use the Set White Point and click around on the white till you get the result you want.

Now i suggest using NeatImage to make the image look less noisy or using a black brush to just wipe everything black.

Hope this tutorial has helped some poeple and will animate you to take some photographs.

Over and Out,
Lucas

[boyCradle]

Thank you for the tip! Now I wonder, how come these thing did not come to my mind before. I am interested in photography but I am thinking more of Landscape photography which is more of just a hobby. I am also thinking of having a business in photography but on wedding photography. Setting up a home studio never came to my mind because I am living in a small house which is just enough for us to move with ease.

And because of your tip I am now planning to have a Home Photography Studio, I could just set up the studio when clients arrive, and remove them after the photography session. Just like having a television studio, you set up the props when there are shootings. hehehe

But I have another tip, you could also use green cloth as background. most people do not use green on the outfits and shirts and this could help you edit the background easily if you have those pre-made backgrounds for studio and portrait shots. This is also the way big budgetted films work on their stunts and flying animations.

[Unregistered 015]

Nice tutorial! The topic, however says "How To Make A Low-budget Photography Studio, Lucas Photography Tutorial #2", and I wonder where is #1? What it is about?

[sxyloverboy]

ciroxyz, on Aug 29 2005, 05:39 PM, said:

Nice tutorial! The topic, however says "How To Make A Low-budget Photography Studio, Lucas Photography Tutorial #2", and I wonder where is #1? What it is about?

Thanks! put the other tutorial in the Trap17 Graphics > Tutorials section because it was done 100% in PS. here is a link to it if you want to look at it maybe. link Its about editing the pictures to make them look a bit better after shooting if the colors are a bit dull.

-+-
boyCradle: wow i never thought about haveing a green thing. though you know it dosent really matter what color it is as long as its a solid color. so i suppose if you have a bunch of colors you can just use the right one to work with what your people are wearing or whats the color of your object. Then you can use the Magic wand tool to select it and delete it and put the background on a layer underneith.

And if your going to be making a home Studio for portrait photos i would suggest buying some real reflectors not the ones i told about because they look a bit. well id say they wont leav the best impression with your customer.

[boyCradle]

But it be be easier to use green backgroung, there is so little possibility that your clients will be wearing green, it would be easier to use the magic Wand tool by that.

And yes, I would use real reflectors. Because the client might think that I am not a serious photographer withi those aluminum-foil-covered cardboards. hehehe