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GREEN (OR BLUE):

Finally, here’s a different subject, with the same lighting setup, on a green backdrop. Green (or blue) has always been popular in the video world. A process called “keying” allows most video-related programs to automatically extract people from the background and place them on other backgrounds. Movies (especially those with lots of special effects) use this all the time. But, here’s why I don’t like it for compositing:

The main reason I don’t like it is the green spill that can occur. Light picks up the color of any surface it hits, right? So if you’re lighting your subject in a studio, there’s a good chance that the lights you’re using can reflect off the background and spill green light onto the edges of your subject. There are ways around this, though. Standing a good distance in front of the background always helps to reduce the spillover, but that also means you need a studio with enough depth and space to accommodate.

You need more lights. You have to light the background evenly, which usually requires at least one, if not two, lights. Then, you need to light your subject. So, lighting can quickly go from three lights to five.

It’s just more difficult. Chances are there’s a white backdrop nearby in a photo studio, but unless you’re set up only for compositing, green probably isn’t as close at hand as white.

I’m not saying that green backgrounds are always bad. If you’ve got the setup and are comfortable lighting it, it can work really well. It just takes a little more setup and know-how to do it. For me, a white background (and letting it turn to a light gray) is the way to go.

2. Basic Composite

I thought we’d jump right in with a basic composite. Here, we have a background and we have a person who was shot in a studio. The subject is a friend of mine, Justin. He practices mixed martial arts (MMA) and I took some studio portraits of him in his MMA gear. But, I also grabbed some photos of him in casual dress, as well. When I shot the photo we’re working with here, I had an idea—put him in a dark alley with a very grungy feel to it.

Planning Ahead

This is one tutorial where planning ahead really helped out. From the portrait shoot all the way to the background, I knew this was going to be a composite. I also knew it was going to be a full-body composite, which makes things a little more difficult. When that’s the case, there are a few things you can do to help make sure everything fits together nicely.

STEP ONE:

During the photo shoot of Justin (seen here), I knew that I would be compositing him onto a different background. So, the first thing I did was note the focal length on the lens I was using. I mostly shoot my portraits and backgrounds with the Nikkor 24–70mm f/2.8 lens, and the focal length of this portrait was 70mm. The next thing I did was note the camera height. I had the camera on a tripod about 2.5 feet off the ground. It’s really important that you shoot your background at the same height, or your subject’s feet won’t line up with the ground.

STEP TWO:

Finally, I noted how far away I was from the subject. In this example, I was about 8 feet away from Justin. Again, if you want your full-body composites to line up nicely, you’ll need to make sure you know the camera-to-subject distance, so you can use the same distance when shooting your background.

STEP THREE:

Now comes the background. Once I found a background I liked, I set the focal length of my 24–70mm lens to 70mm. I didn’t have my tripod, but I knew that I was 2.5 feet from the ground for the portrait, so I got on my knees (similar to how I was crouched in Step One) and got the camera position to nearly the same height. Then, I moved back until I was about 8 feet from where I envisioned placing the subject. Not 8 feet from the background, though. This is camera-to-subject distance, so I picked a mark on the ground (it was a crack in the street, circled here) where I envisioned placing Justin. Then I backed