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mohamedm36267947
mohamedm36267947
Participant
November 2, 2016
Answered

White background

  • November 2, 2016
  • 3 replies
  • 2357 views

Hello,

        I wanted to take portraits with clean white background, spent couple of hours fiddling with 2  backlights pointed toward a white background; kept positioning the lights (alienbees 800) till I got Blinkies on my Nikon d810. I took several portraits and was very happy. Now, when I transferred the pictures to Lightroom 5 on my laptop, the white background looked more toward pinkish and no Blinkies whatsoever ( arrow up ON on histogram), I had to crank the whites to 100 and still not fully overexposed. Is this normal? What gives??

Thank you,

Mohamed Mami

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Per Berntsen

    I am not sure what you mean by contrast setting; I have a D7100, can you described the menu setting. Thank you.


    Lightroom does some automatic highlight recovery when rendering the raw file, but it doesn't show on the sliders, they stay at 0.

    I think this was introduced in Process version 2012.

    But you should still be able get a white background using the Whites and/or Highlights sliders if the background is almost white to begin with.

    As for changing the contrast of jpgs, and consequently the camera display, try Menu > Shooting menu > Set picture control > Neutral.

    3 replies

    alanterra
    alanterra
    Inspiring
    November 3, 2016

    Hi

    I have been doing the following in Photoshop, but it can be done in Lightroom as well.

    Here is a histogram of a photo I took against a white background before I start processing it:

    Note that I have selected the triangle at the white end of histogram.

    Now I go to the Tone Curve and grab the curve until all the "near white" points are actually white. Because I selected the triangle above, Lightroom gives me feedback by showing the points that hit pure white by making them red in the image.

    Once you get the whites where you want them, then bend the tone curve back to linear for most of its range. This will put about 90% of the tones where you want them (depending on how many highlights you have in the image).

    Now you can fine-tune the tone curve and make additional edits.

    I prefer doing this in Photoshop because of the additional control it offers, but depending on your image, this should work fine in Lightroom.

    And, BTW, I think you do want your "white" background to come in around (250, 250, 250) and then move it to (255, 255, 255) in Lightroom -- the brighter your background is, the more glare and other artifacts you'll suffer from. It is easier to get it "close" in the camera and fix the last bits in Lightroom.

    Oh, and be careful using the exposure controls in Lightroom -- these will move the whites as well as the image. If you just use the tone curve, you can be sure that your whites remain pinned at (255, 255, 255).

    A

    R
    Community Expert
    richardplondonCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 3, 2016

    Is it possible you may have "Apply auto tone adjustments" checked, in your Default Develop Settings? (presets tab of LR preferences) - or else as part of the action of a Develop preset that you are applying either at import, or subsequently.

    The usual "aim" of such an option is (among other matters) to resist blowing out highlights by all available means - via contrast, exposure, highlights, etc. However in this usage, allowing highlights to blow out is precisely what you DO want!

    mohamedm36267947
    mohamedm36267947Author
    Participant
    November 3, 2016

    Auto Tone is not turned ON in my default settings. I purposely want pure white as portrait background but I want to achieve  that in the camera and not in Lightroom; we are not talking about a handful of portrait but rather hundreds!

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    November 3, 2016

    White areas looking pinkish ... can you show us a screen capture so that we can also see histogram and the sliders in the panels on the right side of the develop module.

    Have you calibrated your monitor recently?

    mohamedm36267947
    mohamedm36267947Author
    Participant
    November 3, 2016

    Hello,

    My monitor is indeed calibrated, I was hesitating mentioning the pinkish cast and that is

    Not really the issue; what I observed is that if my camera shows blinkies everywhere then I would expect Lightroom to show some signs of overexposure in the white area, there is absolutely nothing?? The pictures were shot in RAW.

    This is very puzzling to me.

    Thank you, Mohamed Mami

    Sent from my iPhone

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    November 3, 2016

    mohamedm36267947 wrote:

    Hello,

    My monitor is indeed calibrated, I was hesitating mentioning the pinkish cast and that is

    Not really the issue; what I observed is that if my camera shows blinkies everywhere then I would expect Lightroom to show some signs of overexposure in the white area, there is absolutely nothing?? The pictures were shot in RAW.

    This is very puzzling to me.

    Thank you, Mohamed Mami

    Sent from my iPhone

    So essentially you have not provided the other information that @richardplondon or myself have asked for. We need that information to help answer your question.

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