In this video, I'll show you how to add a
neon style background to your studio portraits.
Hello I'm Gavin Hoey, and
you're watching Adorama TV, brought to you
by Adorama, the camera store that's got
everything for us photographers.
Now when it comes to backgrounds in my home
studio, I've got loads to choose from.
I've got textured walls, I've got various
pop-up backgrounds, what I don't have is
a large neon sign background, perhaps for
pretty obvious reasons, but in this video,
I'm going to show you how to add a neon
sign to your studio portraits, now yes
it's not going to be hyper realistic it
is going to be dramatic, and eye catching,
there will be some photoshop involved,
but before we get anywhere near
Photoshop, everything revolves around
getting the lighting correct, as if there
really was a neon sign back there,
so let's get some lights set, let's get a
model in, let's get shooting.
So to help me out today,
I've got the amazing Sophie,
Sophie is going to be the model for this,
but before we get on to lighting Sophie,
I need to talk about the background.
Now for this to work, a dark background is
definitely the way to go, and the easiest
way to manage that is just to pop up a
black background.
I may not stay there at
the end of the video, but for now that's
how I'm going to begin.
Then we need to think about the light on
the back of Sophie, now remember back
here is some fantasy neon sign
that doesn't actually exist, and yet the key
to making this work, is to light Sophie as if it
actually was there.
That means I've already planned in my
head the color for that neon sign,
and it's red, so I've got a red gel on my
light, and I'm going to put the light in
behind Sophie, now the easiest option is
probably a single light popped in behind
Sophie pointing at her back,
but in reality there's not enough room
in my small home studio for the light to
spread, and really give that glow around
Sophie and get the final look that I
want, so the solution for this is
actually two lights either side of
Sophie, so I've got two
identical flashes, I've set them to
identical powers they both have grids on
to help control the spill of light,
so my background stays black, and inside
each of them is two identical red gels.
Finally there is what Sofie is wearing,
so if she was just wearing something
matte colored it would absorb the light,
we really wouldn't see this effect so
this shiny outfit is perfect for this
look, let's just take a test shot see if
this works.
Okay Sophie, here we go, so now we have
the red going around the edges of Sophie
we have that rim lit look as if there
was a large neon light behind her.
So we've got nice rim lighting on Sophie,
but of course we want to see the front
of her as well, so that's where my third
flash comes in.
So I've got an explorer 400 way up here
on the ceiling, with a small softbox,
but of course, if we're gonna do this gel
lighting thing, maybe I want to take it
just a step further, and what I've done
is, I've put a blue gel on the key light,
now adding a blue gel will inevitably
change the exposure, remember I'm
shooting it f/4, so I'm gonna check my
exposure just to see how that adjusted it,
it here we go Sophie, f/2.5, quite a bit
more than a stop of difference in
light, and once again I just need to get
this light to meter at f/4, and once it
does I'm good to go, okay let's take a
few shots like this, Sophie are you ready,
okay here we go.
I think it's time for a change of
background, I think I'll try it for a few
pictures without the blue gel, and Sam if
you're ready let's get some smoke on the
go, we'll add some atmosphere,
and texture to this.
I did get some props for this shoot,
I got these neon sunglasses, but for these
to work what we're going to need to do,
is turn off the room lights, and adjust
the exposures a little bit.
I think what makes this look even better
is... of course some smoke,
basically everything's coming out red
now, think that's enough smoke to last me
a lifetime.
So now I get to add the neon background
into the photos I've just taken.
Now for this to work you're gonna need some
software with layers.
I'm gonna use Photoshop,
and you're gonna need a neon
background, so maybe you photographed
some real neon, that would be good,
maybe you've used a tutorial to make your own
neon, or maybe you've downloaded the free
ones from my website,
which is what I've done.
So I've got three you can use.
There's a circle a triangle and a square,
all completely free from Gavtrain.com
So I'm going to use the square one, I'm
gonna go to select, and all edit and copy,
go over to my picture that I want to add
in the neon background, and choose edit
and paste, now I need to remove the black,
and the easiest way to do that is to
come to the layers, and on the layers, I'm
gonna change the layer blending mode
from normal to screen, and then I need to
resize this to make it a better fit,
so I'll choose edit, free transform, I'll
grab a corner handle, shrink this down,
drag it around, rotate it about, let's
just see, let's go something like that
and we'll just try and fit that
somewhere around about there,
that looks pretty good, so I'm happy with
that I'll click on the tick
to commit to that change.
Now obviously the neon at the moment is
in front of Sophie, and we lit the entire
scene imagining that the neon would be
behind her, so I've got to change that
around, and that means making a selection.
So this is perhaps the most complicated
bit of the entire process, let's have a
look, so back to my layers, I'm gonna
click on the background layer, that's the
one with Sophie in it, and then I'm gonna
choose either the well the old magic
wand tool, or the much more modern quick
selection tool.
It doesn't matter which one, because I'm
actually gonna use 'select subject',
click on that button,
notice that 'sample all layers' is not
ticked but auto enhance is ticked,
and that's going to do a reasonably good
job at actually selecting Sophie.
Now it doesn't do a perfect job, it
missed a little bit there on her arm, and
it's missed a little bit on her hair, not
that it matters too much, because these
areas aren't actually gonna cross the
neon, so anywhere where the neon is
crossing Sophie's body, I just want to
make sure that those bits are correctly
selected.
Okay once it's good then all I
need to do is go to select inverse and
then I can go back to the layer with the
neon rectangle on it, and this time I'm
going to add in a layer mask.
Now lots of ways to do this but the
easiest way is on the layers panel.
Find the white rectangle with the dark
circle in the middle, click on that,
and that will cut Sophie out.
Now if you're gonna make a
big print, make sure that you refine your
selection, that means going in close and
using the black and white paint brush
tools, just to either add or remove
little bits and pieces, just to smooth
off the edges, and make the whole thing
look as neat as possible.
It's also worth remembering that if the
color of your neon doesn't quite match
what you did in the photography, then you
can use the hue/saturation setting to
fine-tune or completely alter the color
of that neon background.
Now this is looking pretty good,
but we're not quite done yet,
there's two more things to do,
the first one is to add a little bit of
depth of field to my neon, at the moment
it's really, really, sharp,
so let's go to 'filter and blur' and 'gaussian blur'
because there's a bit of a depth of
field thing going on in the background,
so it would make sense that this neon is
perhaps just slightly soft as well.
So I'm gonna add a little 2 pixel Gaussian
blur in there, and finally there's the glow.
Now there is actually quite a glow
coming from both sides, because there's
quite a bit of smoke, residual smoke in
the room, but I'm gonna increase that by
making another layer, so let's go to
'layer new' and, and I'm gonna call this
'glow and then I'm gonna choose a color
by clicking on the foreground color,
and clicking just very close to the edge of
the neon, maybe we'll just increase that a
little bit red, more like that, there we go ,
and then get a nice big paintbrush so we'll get
the brush tool, I'll change my brush size,
so it's nice and big, we'll have the
hardness down to 0%, and the opacity well,
let's keep it around about 30%, and it
definitely ought to be bigger than that.
I'll use the square brackets to increase
the brush size, and then I'm gonna put
some random little clicks just here and there.
I'll keep changing the brush size a
little bit, just to move this around, and
I just want to add a nice little glow to the
whole area of the picture, something like that.
Now that's quite strong, I'm gonna
take the opacity for that layer down, and
then I'm gonna do it all over again..
Layer, new layer, we'll call this glow -
and we'll do the same thing again
we'll add a little bit of glow just around
the edges, there we go.
Notice I'm trying to keep away from
Sophie, I don't really want too much glow
on, particularly on her face, but there
we go, that looks pretty good, drop the
opacity for that down, and that just adds
that nice little glow, just to complete
the blending in process of that neon
background, and with a little bit of a
tweak to the contrast, there it is my
neon background, it is in my picture,
and my picture is completed.
The key to success on a project like this
isn't so much the Photoshop skills,
or even the fact my smoke machine
makes everything look awesome.
It is the belief that in the original pictures
there really was something red and
glowing behind Sophie,
because of course there was.
It was these two soft boxes right here.
Now if you've enjoyed this video,
or you've got a question,
leave me a comment below click
on the bell icon for regular
notifications of all the brand new
videos right here on AdoramaTV,
and of course click on that subscribe button.
I'm Gavin Hoey, thanks for watching.