How can a towel background appear pure white in a macro still life without post-processing?
Asked 4/7/2012
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I saw a macro still-life image where the photographer said a towel was used as the background, but the towel’s texture is barely visible and the background looks nearly pure white. How can a textured fabric background be made to disappear like that in-camera? Is this mainly done with lighting and exposure, or does shallow depth of field also play a role?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
14y ago
2 Answers
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Absolutely. This effect is achieved very simply with lighting. Most likely she had a light behind the towel as well as having sufficient light in front of the towel. By setting her exposure properly she guaranteed the background would end up pure white. This is a pretty common technique.
You see it with a lot of model pictures on a white background. Those are shot with a paper roll (usually) as the background. It's the combination of setting the lights in the right place and setting the exposure properly that causes the background to go pure white.
In fact, this effect is far easier to achieve in camera than in post processing.
Edited to add that having a shallow depth of field in this shot also contributed to the background going white. The blurring effect of the aperture smooths out the texture in the properly lit background.
Originally by user8677. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user8677
14y ago
0
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Yes. You can make a towel background appear nearly or completely white in-camera with lighting and exposure, without relying on post-processing.
The usual approach is:
- Light the subject for the exposure you want.
- Light the background separately so it is brighter than the subject, often by about 1 stop or more.
- Keep that extra light aimed at the background so it doesn’t spill onto the subject.
When the background is overexposed, its texture fades or disappears into white. In a macro shot, shallow depth of field helps even more by blurring the towel texture so it looks smoother and cleaner.
So the effect is typically a combination of:
- correct exposure on the subject
- brighter background lighting
- shallow depth of field
This is a common studio technique for “white background” images. In the example you mention, the background may not be perfectly pure white, but it’s close enough that the towel is mostly invisible.
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