What background color works best for photographing plants for easy cutout?
Asked 4/28/2020
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2 answers
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I’m shooting product photos of plants for an online store and need to remove the background later. A green screen seems like a bad fit because the plants themselves are green. What background color would make masking or background removal easiest, while avoiding color spill and keeping clean edges around leaves?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
6y ago
2 Answers
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A green or blue background is mostly used on video or cinema to be replaced by another background because you need to "automate" the process when you have hundreds or thousands of frames.
But in photography, it is not always the case.
If you have time to plan, the color you choose depends on the finished product. It would depend if the finished look is high key or low key, if the product has some rim light, if you will keep the projected shadows, etc.
In my opinion, just use the color that will most likely fit the finished look.
Because you want the least color contamination possible this reduces to white, gray, or black, but in the case of black you need it to be darker than the shadows, so you have a clean border.
Depending on the project, a photo can be extracted with something simple as a magick wand selection or using some kind of blending mode. But you need to light the background as evenly lighted as possible.
Originally by user37321. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user37321
5y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
For still product photography, you usually don’t need a traditional chroma-key setup like video does. Since your subject is green, avoid green backgrounds.
A practical choice is a neutral background—white, gray, or sometimes black—picked to suit the final look and to minimize color contamination. White or gray are often easiest if you want a clean catalog style. Black can work too, but only if it stays clearly darker than the plant shadows so the edges separate cleanly.
If your goal is specifically to make masking easier, a color opposite to green is often helpful: magenta or pink. Because it strongly contrasts with green, it can make channel-based selections easier and reduce confusion between subject and background.
So the short answer is:
- for the cleanest, least color spill: white or gray
- for easiest color contrast against green foliage: magenta/pink
Choose based on your final style and how much post-processing you want to do.
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