Studio Backgrounds

Understanding backgrounds is crucial if you want to succeed in photography.

Backgrounds are the foundation on which we build our photographs. A background can make or break an image, so it’s crucial that you understand how to work with them.

There are a multitude of choices when it comes to backgrounds, both for studio photography and work on location. This photography class covers the main types of backgrounds and features a bonus clip on how to make your own.

In this class:

  • Commonly used materials for backgrounds
  • The most versatile background colours
  • How to change your background colours using lighting modifiers
  • Making your own photography background
  • Portable backgrounds for location work
  • Infinity coves

If you like this class, you may also enjoy Making a Canvas Backdrop.

Questions? Please post them in the comments section below.

Comments

  1. HI,

    Thank you for your videos,

    Are you using for white background shots the Arctic white or super white Colorama backgroud paper?

    1. Hi, if it’s paper I’ve always used the Arctic White. However I mostly use a painted wall with Dulux Vinyl Matt Pure Brilliant White.

    1. Hi, I haven’t been able to acheive that myself, even my mobile wall has a thin join. The only way to do it would be to use plasterboard sheets and then have someone put a plaster render over all of it in the same way house interiors are done.

  3. Hola Karl estoy disfrutando mucho de los cursos, vi el video de los fondos y como fabricar un fondo con el canvas, pero no sé cómo o dónde encontrarlo, ¿me podrías facilitar el link? muchas gracias.

      1. Hi Kalr,
        Is the artist mount board a good background for small product photography? I mean, when I’ve searched for it online I found the Passpartout which goes arroud of a picture and also a “background paper”. Both of them has some notecible amount of visible fibers, which made me wonder if it would be visible when a light is hiting from certain angles, resulting in a non smooth enough background. Also Id loke to know thick it should be. Thabk you!

  5. Hi Karl! I recently signed up and have been going through your lighting videos and have found them to be quite the resource. I look forward to going through your entire website. This is so much better than hopscotching from book to book, YT video to YT video. There are too many knowledge gaps using that method. Thank you for creating this website.

    So onto my question. Perhaps I missed it, but you didn’t mention muslin backgrounds in your video. What are your thoughts on those?

    1. Hi Emma, great to hear that you are enjoying the platform. Yes Muslin fabric backgrounds are an option but they are used more for portraiture and they are a material that can crease and fold. Sometimes this can be the required look, but when we think of backgrounds we need to think about what is the most suitable one for the subject being photographed. As you will see across many of my classes my decisions on backgrounds are based on the subject etc. My particular style is often for simple cleaner backgrounds to make my subject stand out.

      1. Based upon your work and how you craft your images, I can see that it is probably not the most desirable option. I am building up my business around serving the music community, specifically the classical community, which tends to favor a cleaner look as well. I’ll stick with the options you presented. Thank you for your response.

  6. hi , Karl, what do u think of washable matte PVC background… its really easy to handle, but sometimes I see reflections, not sure if its my fault or the background material generally have reflection.

    1. Hi Evelyn, if it is matte then you shouldn’t be getting direct reflections? We use matt acrylic and occassionally I’ve used PVC or vinyl but anything that reflects and image of the light source and doesn’t diffuse it isn’t really suitable as it’s going to make it difficult to work with. If you must use it and it’s wide enough then you can angle it away from parallel to see if that helps but that will reduce its effective width.

  7. Stephan Jarvis

    Hi Karl, I’ve somehow managed to fail at painting a sheet of MDF! I was wondering if you (or Tim) might be able to help. My board is 4 x 450 x 900mm. I got some matte paint (water-based as far as I can tell) and a roller (not foam which seems to have been a mistake). Rolled the paint on (rather conservatively and probably too aggressively), let it dry then rolled on another coat. However, it has dried all patchy, and more annoyingly the board has warped and won’t lay flat any more. Any suggestions so that I can do a better job next time would be most welcome!

    1. Hi Stephan, we use the short fluffy style rollers. The sponge ones don’t seem so good. Make sure it’s a decent brand of paint and is definitely water based paint. Make sure you mix your paint well before applying, we have perfect results with Dulux or Valspar paint. If it’s thin MDF or hardboard it may warp a bit but paint it on a flat floor and it should flatten out again? The only thing different here is we don’t normally paint sheets as small as you are describing, the smallest we’ve done is 120cm x 120cm 3mm hardboard. When we use actual mdf board it’s usually 9 or 12mm thick and won’t bend.

      1. Stephan Jarvis

        Thanks! I’m based in Japan, so no Dulux or Valspar paint for me, unfortunately 🙁 DIY stores here don’t have as much choice as in the UK. Will try again with a different roller and a thicker board!

  8. Hey Karl!

    Which type of paper do you use/choose for printing the wallpapers you paste on the mdf wooden boards?
    Thank you! 🙂

      1. Hi Karl,

        Thanks for the fast response. At min 8:04 you said: “instead of painting this piece of MDF we’ve actually wallpaper it” and you lifted up the MDF.

        1. Hi Yes, that one hasn’t been painted, that one is an ‘effects’ wallpaper which is a wallpaper with an image already printed on it. You can get these from interior design and decorating shops and source wallpapers with a wood print, concrete print etc etc. This one had a light wood planks effect printed.

  9. I feel as though I ripped you off Karl. I got my moneys worth in the first video I watched Thank you so much AWESOME courses

        1. I have few different gray paper rolls from a mid gray to a dark gray. I mostly use the darker grays but not sure of their name.

  11. One question Karl, technical. Why do all videos seem to fail to stream – they all pause at 0:12, and I have to manually skip the first 12 seconds manually for virtually all videos so far!

    1. Hi Gregg, I’ll pass your comments on to our tech team but we are not having any issues here. Please check your connection speeds and that there are not other people downloading high levels of data at the same time as you. If you are still experiencing problems please email us with your operating system and computer details and we can look into this further.

        1. Hi Gregg
          I am having the same problem and usually refreshing resolves the issue m(stop the video, press refresh icon then try again – you may have to do it a couple of times), otherwise I cannot get past the first 12 seconds until I refresh – it just goes in to a constant loading cycle.
          Regards

      2. I have found the solution.
        Forcing the quality to be 1080p (or higher) before pressing play fixes the issue.

        Don’t know if it’s possible via wordpress+vimeo combination here, but if its so – I’d love a setting that would make that an automatic choice.

        To be fair, watching some of these tutorials in lower than 1080p resolution is quite pointless anyway!

  12. Hey Karl, you may want to move the 12-foot paper a bit to the right as it’s covering the emergency exit.

    David

  13. Karl, I love the fancy lever rolling background system you are using in the studio. I would like to get rid of the hanging chains and I do not really trust the electric drives so this looks like perfect solution.
    However, I was not able to find anything like that on internet. Could you let me know who produces those?

    Thanks a lot for your help.

    Cheers, Tomas

    1. Hi Thomas, this is a Colorama background system which is owned by Manfrotto. It may be under thier Lastolite brand now?

  15. Hi Karl.. I do think the light meter has its use a much as it may not be the best tool for creative work. Where the shoe was introduced to show a different material would require that the light reading is done again for that specific subject in my opinion.

  16. Hi Karl , thanks for your great videos . I want to say that it exist colored papers background bigger , I am buyinf them at Calumet , 2,72m large .

  17. Is Hardboard Wood? What does MDF stand for? I love that infinity cove because, well, it looks like it goes on for infinity.

  18. Tim

    If you are looking to create a wide canvas backdrop theatre supply companies can be a good place to look and normally supply canvas in extra wide widths.

  22. I’ve found canvas to be far superior to muslin in terms of it’s resistance to wrinkling even though it’s a bit heavier. Another great lesson.

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