Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Quick Fix for the not so white backgrounds

Many people talk about getting that perfect white background in their photos. I have already had two entries on how to do this with your camera settings. There is another way to tweak them as well just in case they didnt come out as white as you were hoping for.

Many people have post processing programs like Photoshop and the likes. If you dont have one of these programs though there is a free alternative. Gimp is a free program that does a lot of what photoshop can do http://www.gimp.org/ is the site.

Here is a quick reference on a quick fix. Open Gimp then open your photo with the not so white background. Then go to Colors>levels



Drag your cursor to the white eyedropper and click


Then pick what should be the whitest spot in your photo. I am picking the highlight reflected on the surface from one of the beads. You can see an arrow pointing to where I am talking about. Then click on it with the eyedropper. Click ok to save the changes.


Here are the results.



Full size before and afters


After.




Depending on how off your original is your picture may require more tweaking. We can get into that another time.

11 comments:

Unknown said...

WOW, I am on my way to try this! The illusive "white background" and I have had quite the go around. I am the closest I have been but looking forward to trying this! Plus it is FREE! :)

Terri Pezzullo - Handmade said...

Great info, thanks.

Izabel Designs said...

Holly cow! Now that's white.

Thanks a lot:)

Nina said...

Thanks for the info! As a jewelry artist, I had trouble getting the white background I wanted in my shop photos so I gave up on it. I'm going to give it another try! :)

CatherineS said...

Thanks!! That's awesome!

Orion Designs said...

Thanks for sharing the Powers of Gimp!

SavageBabble said...

How awesomely cool is that!
Thanks.

LeaKarts said...

Great post! I'm going to have to try gimp out--I recently switched computers & can't use my Photoshop anymore, and I don't want to shell out the cash for it. This will help a lot!

Nisha said...

Very nice, thanks!

Unknown said...

I got it. It works great. Now to fix all the photos on etsy *sigh*
Thanks...

Anonymous said...

Oh my goodness this was an awesome help. Thanks so much for putting the time in to help others. It is so much easier than cutting the picture out. Next tip would be how to tweek the actual item if it washes out too much:):)