Green Screen photography

Have any of you done any green screen photography? Ok - this is not cruise related, except I might use some cruise pictures as backgrounds! Just curious, how hard is it to do? Have you created any backgrounds? I volunteer with a veterans group and we were thinking of using this as a donation getter. Any suggestions?

Thank,

Vic

Have any of you done any green screen photography? Ok - this is not cruise related, except I might use some cruise pictures as backgrounds! Just curious, how hard is it to do? Have you created any backgrounds? I volunteer with a veterans group and we were thinking of using this as a donation getter. Any suggestions?

 

Thank,

Vic

I've done it a little here and there for photos and video. For photos, I used the color selection tool in photoshop, delete the green, then insert a background on another layer (below the layer with the people). Of course, try to avoid people wearing green, but its still fairly easy to use another selection tool and remove that from the selection.

Make sure your green screen is nice and even (as few wrinkles as possible and not moving), otherwise you'll get multiple layers of green that you have to select and remove.

You can purchase green screen software that eliminates the need for Photoshop. The software can be quite automated in operation as to combining subject with background image. Just google green screen software to see the companies that produce it along with the hardware you will need. It really is simple to do, but not cheap.

Using the screen (I personally have a blue one, instead of traditional green) can be a really fun way to add interest to a fund raiser. Especially if it's incorporated with a theme dinner kind of thing...

It's not hard to do with even the most basic photo editing tools.

I had limited studio space in the past and did quite a bit of shooting in front of the screens. The best advice is definately to keep the wrinkles to a minimum and watch your shadows. Nothing is more annoying than having to eliminate 8 different shades of a color, and nothing looks goofier than slight shadows to the right of your subjects and to the left of your background objects.

Play with it first, but it is a fun event!

Dan

ActionShots Photography

Try to keep your subject away from from the screen so the green does not bleed into them.

Try to keep your subject away from from the screen so the green does not bleed into them.

The point of pulling them away from the screen is to eliminate shadows onto the screen from the subject... it can't 'bleed' into them unless they are wearing the green in their clothing...

Sorry, I have seen it happen. For two years we did MLB portraits on a green screen for a cilent. Photo day space is always very limited so my studio set up has to be very compact. The only real problem we had was if the players were too close to the background.. less than about 3 feet we would get some bleeding on the edges of the white uniforms and that meant the art department had to take more time cutting the players out. For this particular application we switched to a thunder gray seamless. Using two 4x3 softboxes for main lighting is not going to create shadows.

Have to agree. If the subject is too close, edges can be illuminated by reflected light from the color screen and some "bleed" occurs.

Dave

Thanks for the answers, I hadn't checked back in a while. I did have the experience of the green bleed and wondered about it. It seems to be worse on a dark subject.

This is one of my practice pictures. I hope to take a few more before taking it on the road. I decided to use FXHome PhotoKey6. I tested several before I decided on this one and it has some nice features without being horribly expensive.

Vic

The lighting is what I need the most practice with. I've never used it before. And if I could figure out how to set up the boom light it would help! Does anyone have an easy way of carrying around 8 florescent cfls without boxing them?

Vic