Often I’m asked, “How do you saturate your backgrounds with color? Do you this in Adobe Photoshop? First, other than minor tweaking of the blemishes in the image or model’s skin, I rarely use Adobe Photoshop to saturate my backgrounds—my rule of thumb, do all you can in the camera, don’t be an image-maker, be a photographer!
Saturation and even changing the color of the background, specifically the sky in this article, is done with the use of gels, often at the cost of less than $6 (six-dollars) plus the fraction of time it takes to set your white-balance by the numbers or through custom, white-balance procedures according to your particular camera.
An easy technique that comes from the old film days, now simplified with digital photography through the use of white-balance. With film cameras we used filters in front of our lenses for this technique forcing the photographer to look through the filter attached to the lens—this filter would reduce the light entering the lens by at least one to two full F/stops while making everything look one color to the photographer during the shoot. While the reduction of light can act like a neutral-density filter, it’s an additional piece of glass that the image is captured from, thus some degradation. With digital you can shoot with a “clean lens,” no filter in front of it, thus sharper images and no solid-color view while shooting keeping your creativity intact.
Start with a ROSCO 3/4 CTO gel, also known as number 3411 at your local theatrical supply house or camera pro store. Then place the gel over your flash unit, the stronger the flash unit, the better because you have to overpower the sun with flash and remember the F/16 rule--on a bright sunny day, if your ISO is 100 and your shutter-speed is 1/100 then your F/stop is always 16.
Once the gel is placed over the flash unit, on camera or portable battery pack studio lights--yes, I use Hensel Porty Premium Packs at 1200ws, then crank your power all the way up and get the correct exposure. I prefer ISO 50 on a Canon, or ISO 100 on all others, shutter-speed--use the highest sync speed possible to start! The idea is to overpower or match the sky--see F/16 rule above! So if you have the ISO at 100 at shutter-sync speed at 1/200 like that found on the Canon 5D, or 1/160 on the Olympus E-volts, then you are going to darken your sky if your settings are at F/16. However, if you wait till sunset, then you can safely work at F/11 and then lower as the sun sets. Keep in mind, once you’ve established your exposure, you can “drag” or slow-down the shutter-speed to lighten the sky and the saturation of color to your personal tastes. Don’t worry about the subject, the flash is her shutter-speed and aperture.
Once you have your correct exposure established for your style, then take a white-card or white-t-shirt, anything white, then have the model hold it in front of her, fill your camera frame as you look through the lens until you have solid white--from there take the picture through your camera's custom white-balance procedure--see your owner's manual if you need it. On a Canon 5D, you simply go to "Custom WB" then select the image and then select "CWB" (flower looking item on LCD) at the LCD screen top. (Note: If you change the power of the pack, change the subject to flash distance, or change to a different shade of gel, redo the custom white-balance procedure.)
The custom white-balance procedure is for accuracy, especially with shades of colored gels that do not have exact Kelvin temperature rounded to the hundreds as cameras today don’t give you the option to dial in 4126K, though you can dial 4100K and be totally off-color. However, for a 3/4 CTO you can actually dial in the given number without doing a custom white balance set-up. This is because the 3/4 CTO will convert a 5500K light source, or most flash units, and convert it to 3200K, or tungsten. These are accurate, specific numbers found in your camera.
In the case of a ¾ CTO (Continuous Temperature Orange) I like to do is shoot at 3700K by dialing in the exact number in my white-balance menu (3200K plus 500K) as I like to trick my camera by adding 500K more warmth (instead of 3200K)--that is a personal choice. The camera “thinks” the light is 500K cooler than tungsten, so it adds warmth to cancel out the coolness. (Note: On the Canon 5D, if you dial in the number through the menu system, you have to select "K" in the LCD screen.)
Now, once you master this technique, try it with a red, cyan, green or any colored gels until you find your style. Have fun changing the color of the sky/background any color you'd like--we were more limited in film with this technique, but with custom white-balance today, you can do it with any color. If you want hands on this, check out my workshop schedule on my site as Houston and San Antonio are coming up.
All photos in this article shot with Canon 5D with either the 85mm F/1.2 or the 70-200mm IS F/2.8 lenses, lighting by Hensel. No Photoshop was used to change the color of the background, what you see is what I saw (sans cleaning up the image like blemishes on a model's skin) in the camera. The images were shot in RAW + JPG, but RAW over JPG in this case doesn't matter because it's been proven, even when you shoot RAW, it's always best to have the exact white-balance and because it will not be as accurate if you do it in post-production for RAW--just FYI, do it accurately on the shoot to get the best results.
Enjoy, rg sends!
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