Black background #05

Just recently, a client whose branding I had done earlier in the year returned to order some printed PVC banners measuring 4ft x 2ft. The branding was such that the imagery and fonts were always backed-up by a black background, to give that 'dark and sophisticated' look (get what I mean?). Not much of my large-format artwork consists of flat black backgrounds, but I still thought it was straightforward, to my surprise.

The banners were for an overseas charity project, for which my client is a supporter. The graphic design for the banner simply consisted of the black background, the logo and one line of white text reading 'Supported and funded by'.

These were to be printed on a 'shit-hot, state-of-the-art, wide-format, flatbed, LED UV-cured printer' that costs more than your house, and also probably looks better than your house(!) Printing at 1200dpi, the output is crystal-clear and sharper than a razor. With the inks dried and cured by UV lamps, the quality and detail is immense. The banner material, which comes in large 50" rolls, is fed through the printer and it prints directly onto the substrate.

I exported the design as a pdf at 300dpi resolution, and viewed it in Adobe Reader 9.3, it looked fine and the black background seemed really err...black? It looked good. PDF documents are an industry standard type of print-ready file because they hold their resolution and also use the CMYK colour model, which is a popular commercial printing colour model. CMYK is what most printers and commercial-printing set-ups use, which consists of four inks, cyan, magenta, yellow and key (black), which are used in various techniques, to generate millions of other colours and print the artwork.

When the artwork was printed onto the PVC banner material, the print came out such that the flat black background didn't look black, but more of a 'dark grey' or 'anthracite' colour. I initially thought it was the printer itself at fault, but these things rarely go wrong so i suspected it was an artwork issue. Photos don't differentiate in much detail. You can see pictures on the article on my blog.

I was expecting that rich, dark black but this was a disapointment. I mean, it was 'nearly' black, and it was the darkest grey I had ever seen, but, how should I describe this, it was also the 'lightest' black I had ever seen, get my drift? My client wasn't impressed either, so I promised her a 'full investigation and re-print' at my expense (very PC Plod sounding I know), but you gotta keep the client-bunnies happy, right? The quest for perfection and quality was well and truly ON.

I researched around some online forums and blogs, and found the solution to my problem. The problem existed because different colour models interpret flat colours in varying ways. Let me explain. When designing using my vector graphics software, all colours on the screen are viewed and represented using the HSV colour model, which allocates a six-digit code to each colour/shade such as #FF80FE (a glorious shade of pink!). This colour model uses light to generate the different colours on your monitor's screen, and so are great for web-design and web-graphics.

Black background #04

Choosing a background for a photo shoot is serious business. While a seamless paper background is only one color, the color you choose will affect your finished product either positively or negatively. Choose too conservatively, your subject looks boring. Throw too much caution to the wind, and you'll come off as garish.

In the famous "player's speech" from Hamlet, William Shakespeare urges actors to "suit the action to the word, the word to the action." This advice is not only wise when it comes to acting, but translates into various other artistic endeavors as well, including graphic arts and photography.

Different colors evoke not only different moods, but different personalities. When the right color is chosen for a certain subject, it appears that the subject is floating within it's natural habitat. The personality of the subject and the color fuse seamlessly as if the two simply belong together.

The most common seamless background color is white. It is often chosen because it gives off an airy or pure feeling, and appears clean. Because it reflects light so well, using white as a backdrop is a great way to isolate a subject and let it shine. White truly goes with everything, and is also flexible and allows an artist to change their mind. By placing colored gels over a light source you can experiment with different colors and change your mood on any given day.

Black is also a very versatile color that will compliment almost any subject, but instead of evoking a clean and pure feeling, a black background implies a completely different story. With a black background there is a sense of mystery or even danger in whatever you are photographing. Just because a color matches doesn't mean it is the right choice for a seamless background. For example, a newborn baby bird would not typically sit well upon a black background, but the talons of a hawk might suit the background perfectly as it represents a potential for danger.

Browns and tans are also often chosen as a background because of their neutral nature. The colors themselves match almost anything, although careful attention should be made to the mood that these colors give off. Browns are earthy colors and are often seen as conveying s sense of dependability, like a sturdy oak, or a UPS package. In the case of brown and tan backgrounds, the subjects need to "pop" a little, suggesting they are more important than the background.

Gray is a color that is also chosen for it's neutrality. It goes well with both bright colors and pastels, and like white it allows for quite a bit of flexibility with the lighting. Images can be framed in what looks like a lighter gray in order to draw the viewer's eye to the center of the image and give your subject the attention it deserves.

While black and white and various neutral colors are all safe options for seamless paper backgrounds, some people prefer to have a little more pizazz. In these cases brighter and bolder colors can be the perfect fit. The most difficult to pull off is purple, as it implies power, royalty, and luxury. It also carries and creative and magical element, making it the perfect backdrop for your favorite wizard.

Red is another bold choice, and has been known to have a energetic element built in. In some cases it can be motivating, or it can evoke anger, hunger or passion. When choosing red, there should definitely be some kind of message in mind, and the subject, whether it be a person or an object, should be strong enough to carry it.

Green is commonly associated with earth and environmental themes. It is a common color to evoke hope, safety and social consciousness. It is also known to have a calming affect. It's a great choice for graduation pictures as the young subjects are getting ready to move forward and grow in their lives.

Black background #03

There are many concerns that you should have when you use tables in your web site design. One concern that is overlooked quite often by well-meaning designers who are trying very hard to use 'white-hat' methods is accidental spamming.

Accidental spamming occurs because tables allow you set a background for each cell. Many designers use this feature to set the cell's background color rather than setting the entire page's background color.

Lets use the example of a page with a typical white background color and a table. The designer sets the background color of one of the cells to red and then used white text for users to read.

While the site's visitors may have no problem reading the text in the cell, the text inside the cell is the same color as the main page background. A search engine's spider may consider it spamming because the designer is trying to use the same color text and page background. You have to remember that the spider is just a machine and may be coded to think that the designer is trying to hide the text! This may cause your site to be penalized pretty severely.

But I like the way my site looks! After taking a look at your site(s) you may find that you may be accidentally spamming the Search Engines. If you want to keep the same look and feel and avoid the possible penalty to your rankings, use CSS instead

Clipping out the background of an image is a tedious job but the results are awesome. I clip out about 60 backgrounds a week and boy does it get boring. I use to clip out backgrounds by taking the polygonal lasso tool and selecting the edges of the of the object I was going to keep and then inverting the selection. By doing this the results gave a very rough edges. When I placed them on a document for print or for the web you could still see the background in some areas of the image. To fix this problem I created a technique that leaves the image with a soft blended edge. This technique takes a lot of patients but you will be pleased with the ending results. This technique is using Adobe Photoshop 7.0 and above.

First, you will begin by choosing an image that you would like the background clip out. Open it in Photoshop.

Next, Make the background a layer and name it "image" then make two separate layers and place them behind the image layer. Fill one of the layers with black and the other with white. It doesn't matter which one is black and which one is white because these layers are used to see the darker and lighter areas of the objects edge.

Now, select the Lasso tool from the tool bar and trace the object you are going to keep. NOTE: Do not select the actual edge of the object. Go out about 8px to 10px from the edge. When you are done invert your selection and hit delete. You will now notice your background is either black or white. Depending on the darkness of the edge you will have to determine which background layer to use. I usually start with the black and switch back and forth with the white.

Okay, you are now ready to erase the rest of the background. Select a size 45 soft edge Eraser tool and make the brush size 10px. Start erasing the access background about the same area you began tracing the object with the Lasso tool. You can use your shortcut key [ or ] to size the Eraser tool up or down. Size the eraser tool to 5px and again run the tool along the edge of the object until you see the background erasing before your eyes.

Black background #02

In scrapbooking trends come and go and then come back again. One that has come back is the colour black. Black is now being often used as a background colour for scrapbooking pages. One good thing about having a black background is that it goes with everything. There is not one colour that doesn't look good with black. The use of black is one of the simplest techniques going around to create fantastic scrapbook pages where photos and colours jump of the pages at you. Lets look at a few ideas.

Black is great as a background colour if you plan on using bold colours on your layout. Black means you can use these bold colours that just wouldn't work on any other colour. One way to create a bold background for a page is too sew colourful ribbon or material onto black cardstock. The colours will be jumping off the black card at the viewer.

Another idea is to have black card stock and sprinkle some different coloured embossing powder over it and then heat it. Immediately stamp words and images while it is still setting and allow it to dry. Alternatively you don't necessarily have to stamp anything into it, you could just leave it with random splashes of embossing over the page.

Another way to add colour to a page that is using a black background is to use colourful buttons on your page. You could use the buttons to create a border around a photo or to create a part of a border around a page.

The topic of this weeks post is shooting portraits indoors with a white background, I mean a grey background, I mean a black background... confusing? OK let me explain.

This weeks post is a bit of a tutorial on studio flash photography. WAIT! Don't run off simply because you don't have a fancy studio to shoot in! Most of us don't. The truth is, you don't need a fancy studio to make some pretty fancy images. If you have even a single flash, you can do some pretty neat stuff with it as long as you can get it off the camera (more on that in another post). For now we'll concentrate on the background.

If I told you that you could use a standard white background an make it appear solid black in your image what would you say?

If you have access to a white background (and by background I mean any piece of white material that you can hang up behind your subject) you actually have access to several different backgrounds ranging in shades from white to black.

Ok here's the "HOW TO" part (see the resource box below for examples images taken with these same settings)

Let's take a look at two examples. Take your first image (with the white background) at ISO 200, with a shutter speed of 1/200 of a second. Set the aperture to f8. Lighting could be as simple as a standard two light setup for the shot. One could be a soft box positioned high and at about a 45 degree angle to the subject. A second light shot directly onto the white backdrop will blow it out. Right, so far pretty basic stuff.

Black background #01

When shooting in a studio one of the frequent demands is to create a perfect white background or a perfect black background. Whilst small variations can be corrected using software such as photoshop this will frequently change the subject as well. Also fine detail such as hair might be lost. It is always best to try to light your subjects as close as possible to the final image and not rely on photoshop. You will however require a flash meter to get the settings right, otherwise there will be a large amount of trial and error.

For this situation you will not only a light for the subject but also lights to illuminate the background. The backlight should be set up so that it provides a diffuse light over the background that will be in shot. There are various ways of achieving this, the easiest method I have found is to set up some cheap flash units that having an optical firing system.

When you have set up all the lights, turn off the studio flash which will be for the subject or model you are shooting. Then fire the background flashes and make a measure of the lighting. The figure you get, say for example f32, will be to produce a neutral grey. To make this pure white you need to over expose by 2 or 3 stops, so adjust the exposure accordingly (f11 for the above example).

Now turn off the backlights and turn on the models light and adjust the light output so that you get the correct amount of light for the chosen exposure.

Now turn on all the lights and do some test shots. You will probably have to make some minor adjustments to the exposure depending on the actual photographic studio set up you have. How confined the space, what color the walls are, how how the ceiling is will all effect the amount of reflected light and consequently the exposure and light levels you need. You will however be in the right ball park.

One frequent problem to look out for is the background having subtle variations from white to light grey. By repositioning the backlight or backlights and perhaps adding additional lights or diffusers this can be corrected. Don't fall into the frequent trap of trying to increasing the backlight massively so you have a 3 stop over exposure in the darkest area of the background and a greater over exposure say 4 or 5 stops nearest the light. This will create problems with lighting the subject, especially if you are working in a confined space.

A black background for photography is actually far easier to achieve than a white background. There is one simple rule that will ensure that your blacks and jet black if you follow it. Make sure your background is at least twice the distance from the light source than the subject is. It really is that simple. If you have the space and there is little reflected light you will also be able to turn a charcoal grey background cloth into a jet black one by moving the background further back.

By using these two tips you will find that your photography is so much more enjoyable - when you finish a photoshoot you will find that your images are perfect without having to resort to changing levels or curves in photoshop. Above all experiment and enjoy your photography.

Black screen #07

It is very strange to get start up errors in a new PC running the latest operating system. A same issue called the Windows 7 boot black screen problem is disturbing a lot of people these days. Apparently there seems to be no easy fix. However, after a number of tests it is found that a few system tweaks can help you get rid of the black screen during Windows 7 boot. This article contains some of the important tasks which would surely help you fix this problem.

Normally people prefer to restore to the factory settings to solve such problems. But, if data is not backed up restoring to the factory settings may not be the easy decision to take. Therefore, a lot of people try to fix the problem at first hand.

Remember to defrag your Windows 7 registry as well. The defragmentation overhauls your computer and reorganizes the registry data which is of supreme importance in the Windows 7. By doing so, it is highly likely that the conflicts and issues causing the black screen at Windows 7 boot will be fixed.

The above guidelines are really helpful in solving this problem. There is one recommended tool which you can safely use for a quick fix of the Windows 7 boot black screen problem.

It is always very irritating for the players or gamers when the screen suddenly changes to black in the middle of the game. This is also known as the black screen death or PlayStation black death. There is no need for you to fear and start to panic as that won't help you. Turn of your PS3 and then reboot it again and that might help in solving the black screen death problem. Sometimes a very common thing which causes the black screen to appear is that the different power cables are loose. Some kids like to play for very long hours due to which the PS3 heats up. From the motions the power cables start to become loose and the power gets cut off.

A proper process which might help you is that first of all restart your PS3, after restarting it check all the cables and see that whether or not they are properly plugged in. Except the power cable, unplug rest of the cables and then properly plug them back in the PS3. When your PS3 is turned off also unplug the hard drive and plug it back correctly. This process can help you in fixing the black screen death but most of the times the people get worried when a problem like the PlayStation black death occurs. You can give it to the Sony Company and they will fix it for you but you will have to pay more than $150 to them as well and that is not a small amount of money.