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Add Hand Painted Backgrounds To Your Photos In Seconds With This Digital Trick

Dec 21, 2015 by Udi Tirosh Add Comment

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backdrops-half-half

Some of the iconic portrait photographers, like Annie Leibovitz have a very common look for their studio portraits, they are shot against a hand painted textured backdrop. You know what I am talking about. Those gorgeous backdrops with random soft patters. Those backdrops are hand painted on canvas (just like works of art), and show great details and spectacular color.

Sadly, they are also very expensive. This is why you may want to look at creating those digitally with a pre-shot backdrop.

The trick is to start with a good photo and to use the right blending mode. If you opt for the image manipulation backgrounds, there are curently 5 options to choose from: Feathery Brown, Dark Brown, Deep Blue, Rusty Grey & Decayed White. Here is how you pull that off:

Start with a photo shot against a white or a grey (or other neutral backdrop)

verena_backdrop_01

Place a background over a photo with a white or gray background

verena_backdrop_02

this will hide your photo, fret not…

Set the layer blending mode to soft light

verena_backdrop_03

oh, here it is, but it looks awful!

Apply a layer mask and mask out the general figure using a brush (even a hard one). You don’t need to be very precise, and don’t worry about the edges, just don’t bleed out of the main body.

verena_backdrop_04

oh, there it is, but what about the edges?

Now set your brush to about 20% flow and even out the transitions created by the hard brush. Here is the nice thing. If you contrast is right, you don’t actually need to mask the edges. They are dark so they stand out anyways.

verena_backdrop_05

Here is a quick before and after for you:

If you want to try this yourself, head over to Image Manipulation Store and grab a backdrop.

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Related posts:

How to quickly and easily add backgrounds with textures in Photoshop Tutorial: Add a realistic lens flare to a photo in seconds Power Trick: shadows for composites and digital manipulation Using Cheap Wallpaper As Backgrounds For Professional Looking Product Shots

Filed Under: Tutorials Tagged With: backdrop, blending modes, Image Manipulation Store

Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.net

About Udi Tirosh

Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

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Udi Tirosh: from diyphotography.netUdi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.

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