Black background in Lightroom4.

[wlou]

I was playing around with Lr4 and transformed the leafy background to black. First I used vignetting that only does the edges of the picture. Then I tried the brush in the develop module. I used the adjustment brush and turned down the exposure to "0" and "painted" black. Does it work? Please comments would be appreciated.

[Polar01]

Very good indeed, excellent in fact.

Cheers:

Allan

[HaseebM]

The background is excellent and the vignette gives it an artistic look. However it would be nice to see how the background looks without vignette.

[PRSearls]

Looks very good, Louise. A piece of black mat board or foam core can sometimes be used to save yourself some PP time.

Paul S

[wlou]

Here is the before picture Haseeb.

[wlou]

"Looks very good, Louise. A piece of black mat board or foam core can sometimes be used to save yourself some PP time."

Yes Paul, a technique I use as well, like in this case where a sunflower grows next to my patio. It is a single flower and it was easy to put a large black cardboard behind the plant. Some other times when the flowers grow in large number together, it gets more difficult to isolate them without damaging the others.

[wlou]

Following Donald's links to creativity readings, I am exploring Post Processing, one baby step at a time.
So here is the first picture of my orchid plant on black bacground.


And here is the same picture after darkening the bits of stem that were too apparent.I do like the way the petals sparkled when view in lightboox. Do you think the change is background is noticible?

[Donald]

I am exploring Post Processing, one baby step at a time.

Good on you Louise. Go for it. And you're taking the right approach. One step at time and don't try the 'clever stuff' until you begin feeling comfortable with what you're doing.

Do you think the change is background is noticible?

Definitely. And the petals are so much more bright and 'alive' in the second one. In the first they're a bit grey and dull.

[Manfred M]

Nice work Louise! Your use of the black is very effective in making the subject stand out. It nicely gets rid of the busy background and focuses the viewer's eyes where they should be looking.

[wlou]

Donald, thank you for you comments. The links you have put up with Alain Briot made me realise that "my own style" will appear on its own after I master a bunch of stuff and then use all that in my own way. Darn, he says it so much better than me.(Landscape Photography naturephotographer.net). Thank you for all the info you so generously give us.

[wlou]

Thanks Manfred. I wanted to show the inside of the flowers that I find so attractive, not easy with the macro lens. So eliminating the background was my first step.

[HaseebM]

The change in background is slightly noticeable but the change in the petal white is quite noticeable.

[Shadowman]

Very nice.

[wlou]

Thank you John. Haseeb I am glad you can notice the change in the white petal.

[Glenn NK]

Good work Louise.

I have a black backdrop (dull black cloth) that I haven't used since I discovered the adjustment brush in LR - I frequently use the AB to modify the BG. What I found with the black cloth is that it seldom is pure black because it's hard to keep clean and even dull black will show some reflections. Also, it prevents other options.

I've resorted to using the AB in LR; the advantage is that I can soften the BG without making it black, and get some options other than black.

Using the brush with masking on, and no feather (density and flow at 100), I carefully go round the edges of the image I want to keep sharp. Then to save time, turn the masking off, and paint the remainder of the frame. In area where the edge isn't really sharp, some Feather is useful.

For a black BG, sometimes a duplicate brush is required to get everything totally black.

For a softened BG (defocused) set Contrast, Highlight, Clarity to -100, Shadow to +100. Don't set Sharpness below -35 or so or nasty things will happen with the Gaussian sharpening (so I've been told).

Quite a few of the flower pics linked to below use the AB to defocus/soften the BG (Spanish Lavender, Lavender, and Iris come to mind).

Glenn

[wlou]

Hello Glenn. Your advice is very usefull and I have an example here of how I made use of the settings you suggested.
Before.


After.I did a little fixing of blemishes, I have left some. I wanted to show how papery thin the petals were, they are not perfect in nature anyway. The water drops that dryed already left round spots too. Comments welcome.

[wlou]

Good work Louise.

I have a black backdrop (dull black cloth) that I haven't used since I discovered the adjustment brush in LR - I frequently use the AB to modify the BG. What I found with the black cloth is that it seldom is pure black because it's hard to keep clean and even dull black will show some reflections. Also, it prevents other options.

I've resorted to using the AB in LR; the advantage is that I can soften the BG without making it black, and get some options other than black.

Using the brush with masking on, and no feather (density and flow at 100), I carefully go round the edges of the image I want to keep sharp. Then to save time, turn the masking off, and paint the remainder of the frame. In area where the edge isn't really sharp, some Feather is useful.

For a black BG, sometimes a duplicate brush is required to get everything totally black.

For a softened BG (defocused) set Contrast, Highlight, Clarity to -100, Shadow to +100. Don't set Sharpness below -35 or so or nasty things will happen with the Gaussian sharpening (so I've been told).

Quite a few of the flower pics linked to below use the AB to defocus/soften the BG (Spanish Lavender, Lavender, and Iris come to mind).

Glenn

Glenn you have superb pictures, thank you for sharing.

[shreds]

Isolating the subject is sooooo effective! Nicely done. Lifting the white is much like snow or wedding scenes where it is possible to bring up the whites in a way the camera cannot 'see'.

Keep them coming, Louise.