Hate speech: Facebook, Twitter and YouTube told off by MPs

Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are accused of not doing their jobs as they face questions from MPs.

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April 24, 2019 at 02:18PM
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Huawei: Why UK is at odds with its cyber-allies

The US has been pressing other nations to ban use of the Chinese firm's 5G kit on security grounds.

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Made in China, Exported to the World: The Surveillance State

By PAUL MOZUR, JONAH M. KESSEL and MELISSA CHAN from NYT Technology https://nyti.ms/2ZwVUmP
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Microsoft Paint: Fans rejoice as art app saved 'for now'

After suggestions Paint could be removed from Windows, Microsoft says it's staying - "for now".

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— Great Tech (@GreatTechUK) April 24, 2019

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Donald Trump meets Twitter's Jack Dorsey at White House

Twitter says CEO Jack Dorsey spoke with the president about "the health of public conversation".

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Huawei row: UK to let Chinese firm help build 5G network

Reports suggest the UK will allow the Chinese company to provide equipment for a 5G data network.

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Wing, Owned by Google’s Parent Company, Gets First Approval for Drone Deliveries in U.S.

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Jacinda Ardern leads effort to curb online extremism

New Zealand and France will host a summit aimed at curbing the use of social media to promote terrorism.

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Netherlands 'hosts most child sex abuse images'

About half of such images reported to the Internet Watch Foundation in 2018 were hosted in the Netherlands.

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ThinkTank Vision 15 Camera Bag Review

The post ThinkTank Vision 15 Camera Bag Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter West Carey.

ThinkTank’s Vision 15 camera bag is one in a line of stylish camera and computer shoulder bags built for photographers who want a functional bag that looks good walking down the street. It’s designed for someone who wants easy access to their gear and isn’t looking for a backpack.

Key features

The Vision 15 has a host of features that I enjoyed while testing. These include:

Fits a DSLR mounted on a long lens

I love my 28-300mm L lens (the same size as a 70-200mm f/2.8 or 100-400mm L lens) and this bag does a grand job of storing it while attached. ThinkTank, in their literature, mentions leaving the camera unattached, but I found the combination just barely fits, with easy, quick access.

Canon 6D mounted with 28-300mm L lens alongside Canon 10-22mm lens

Side view with padding removed

Great organization for extras

Inside the spacious main compartment is space enough for a few lenses and speedlights. There are both vertical and horizontal padded dividers to protect your shorter lens stacked one on the other.

All the dividers have velcro on each side, so they can be attached to either long side of the bag or to other dividers. I usually travel with a long lens attached and a wide angle lens stored. This means I have room for: smaller Sony RX-100 V, waterproof cover (included with bag), battery pack for phone and tablet, glasses case, power brick for laptop and DJI Osmo Pocket. And there is still more room in there.

It can handle a portable office

If your bag is not just for your camera, but for all the other items you want with you on a shoot or day out of the office, this bag can carry most of it.

The Vision 15 can manage a 15″ laptop and a 10″ tablet. The laptop sleeve is padded on the back and bottom while the tablet slot is found on the zippered front pocket.

That front pocket has a host of other slots to hold pens, business cards, large phones, cables, and keys (with a tether and clip so that don’t get lost). And it still has ample pocket space for books, batteries, chargers and all the other little things that join you on the road.

An added bit of security to the main compartment

While the generous top flap of the bag keeps the elements at bay, a secondary zippered flap will help keep prying hands away. The flap has velcro to help hold it in place, meaning it will open when the main flap opens and close when it closes. Or zip up the inner flap for an added sense of security. It can also be tucked under the main flap to keep it out of the way for quicker access.

Expandable bottle holder

This little design aesthetic impressed me when I wasn’t expecting it to. Velcro keeps the bottle holder closed when not in use, reducing the chance that it will get caught on something. Plus it looks more stylish this way.

But when you need to hold your coffee or water bottle, just expand the pocket to one of two sizes for a (nearly) custom fit.

Tough, coated bottom

While the bag’s fabric is stylish and does a good job of resisting stains and water, the bottom is made of beefed-up waterproof tarpaulin. This tough option makes for easy clean up when the bag is placed in anything but the most pristine locations. A quick wipe with a damp cloth keeps it clean and your contents dry.

Front and back book/papers pockets

On the back of the bag is a large pocket for books or notebooks. This is a great spot to place quick-at-hand items, and I use it for my calendar and main notebook.

On the front of the bag is a smaller pocket. While you could fit a book in there, it presses against the organizer pocket behind it. While is looks good in photos, it’s not useful for thick items.

Generously padded shoulder strap and carry handle

The bag comes with two main modes of transport: a padded shoulder strap and a carry handle on top. The padding on the shoulder strap is generous and the strap itself has a wide range of adjustment for a variety of torsos. However, the top carry handle only works when you remember to clip the top flap shut. Still, it is a secure way to get the bag in and out of your car for a quick grab.

It fits easily under a seat on a plane

I’ve tested the bag under economy coach seats on 737s and smaller planes with ease. There is ample room and the bag doesn’t scratch along the underside of the seat.

Not so artful tripod holder

On a bag like this, the tripod attachment goes in the only location it can; on the bottom. ThinkTank uses their attachment straps (which can be removed when not in use, as shown above) to allow for a variety of tripod sizes. There’s really no other place for a tripod to go and the clips do an adequate job.

Roller Bag Passthrough

For those who love their roller bags for airports, the back of the Vision 15 has a slot for your roller bag handle to pass through.

Limits

While this bag has a lot going for it, I find the pockets get full fast. Even just throwing a Mindshift card wallet into the front pocket will expand it enough to press on the other pockets. Toss in a charger and Miops cable release as pictured above and you quickly start puffing the bag up, unlike a backpack-style bag.

Vision 15 with rain cover attached

Don’t expect to comfortably carry a full-size tripod on the bottom of this bag. The length would make things unwieldy. Also, with the tripod attached, you suddenly don’t have an easy way to set down the bag.

In use

I tested the bag in use on my job for a month, which included travel on four different flights up an down the West Coast. Its smaller form factor (compared to my normal backpack) is welcome as it packs into my car trunk easily and was effortless to remove, thanks to its clean lines and lack of straps like a backpack.

Opening and accessing contents is straightforward and I left the velcro attachment connected on the inside lid most of the time. Yet, when I had to set the bag down a couple of times in less than ideal situations, that inner zipper was nice to employ. I never did use the rain cover but I am glad they shipped the bag with a black cover to keep it stylish.

Conclusion

The ThinkTank Vision 15 is a very useful shoulder bag. While it can’t quite hold all I like to carry (no space for a drone), it holds all you need on a day-to-day basis when away from the office all day. It easily holds a long lens as well as battery packs, chargers, cards, tablet and laptop. It can easily handle four lenses and a flash, while the padded shoulder strap makes carrying that load bearable.

While the Vision 15 is sized for a 15″ laptop, they have two other, smaller sizes (which cut out the space for a tablet) that might fit your particular setup better.

 

The post ThinkTank Vision 15 Camera Bag Review appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Peter West Carey.

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Google Wing drones approved for US home deliveries

Drone home delivery company Wing will start deliveries in rural Virginia "within months".

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Google 'retaliating against harassment protest organisers'

Organisers of walkouts in protest at Google's treatment of women say they are facing backlash at work.

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Election interference is 'online harm', MPs hear

The UK's information commissioner has strong words on the need for reform of political ads online.

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A Short Introduction to Basic Photo Editing for Beginners

The post A Short Introduction to Basic Photo Editing for Beginners appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Lily Sawyer.

If you’re a beginner, using editing software can be a daunting prospect. What if you can’t get a handle on the technology? What if it’s too complicated a process? What if it’s just too time-consuming? What if the images turn out horrible? So many what ifs! I get it; I’ve been there. In this article, I’m offering a very simple way of delving into editing if you’re a novice. These are basic principles that I hope will set you in good stead for more fancy editing in the future!

First things first.

You need to be able to see what is a good image and a bad image. The key is in your perception.

If you think heavily edited images are the perfect image, then your editing will lean that way and vice versa. If you think an overly-tinted image is perfect, then that would be your bar for perfection. We all have a bias towards something. However, for editing, I think we need to try and be as neutral as possible and leave our personal preferences for the moment.

To be able to see things objectively, we need to:

1. See the differences between over-exposed and under-exposed images and decide as to what is the correct exposure
2. Understand white balance where white looks white, as it should, and not yellow or blue or orange
3. See the contrast between dark and light
4. Decide on the noise

Once we have a basic grip of the above, then editing will be a breeze, and we can get more creative from a solid image base or what I’d like to call a clean edit.

But first, a word on shooting format. Shoot in RAW.

The images below are the original RAW images opened in Bridge without any edits applied.

You can see there is a choice of Adobe color profiles. See the difference between the standard profile below left and the color profile used on the image on the right.

You can choose which profile you prefer.

To successfully understand the above, and make the edits towards them, it is important that you shoot in RAW format. If you shoot in JPEG, you are allowing the camera to process the image, discard pixels the camera deems unnecessary, and accept the color adjustments the camera has made. With a JPEG image, you have less control, are working on a great loss and compression of pixels at the very start and an already compromised image color.

You can read more about RAW processing in Bridge here.

Having said that, someone who is a really good, seasoned, experienced photographer may well shoot JPEGS and achieve the desired image they want. I am not there yet!

Secondly, the type of camera you use affects the original images you get.

A full-frame camera gives you the 35mm sensor – wider, more space, more light hitting the camera sensor and more pixels. What you see through the lens is pretty much what you get. A crop-sensor, on the other hand, works in the opposite way. The lens only allows you to use a portion of the sensor so that a 35mm lens mounted on a crop-sensor camera will only give you the point of view of a 52mm lens equivalent – a more zoomed-in longer focal length. You are losing some width, some light and some pixels.

Let’s dive in!

1. Correct exposure

Correct exposure means getting the balance right between the 3 components of the exposure triangle. Namely: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Balancing all three correctly will give you a perfectly exposed image. That means no blown highlights or details are lost entirely in the shadow or darker areas of the image that should still be visible.

A most useful tool in determining whether your exposure is perfect is to look at the histogram when you are editing. Alternatively, you can view the histogram when you have just taken the photo as there is also a histogram on the LCD of many cameras these days. Simply put, a histogram is a representation of the tonal value distribution across your image in the form of a visual graph. Just by looking at a histogram (that graph on the top right corner of the image below), you can immediately tell whether there is an even spread of tonal values on the image judging from the troughs and crests on the graph or a stark contrast.

If the image you shot has incorrect exposure, then editing is your solution. You can move the sliders on your editing software to increase exposure if the photo is too dark or decrease your exposure if the photo’s too bright. You can usually recover some blown highlights in the case of overexposure.

Take a look at the image above. This is the RAW image opened in Bridge. You can see it’s a little bright with the histogram showing a tall mountain almost touching the right edge. When the histogram touches both left and right edges, this would indicate the dark and light parts of your images are clipped and therefore there is overexposure and underexposure in the image. This is an okay image as nothing touches the edges, but it is too bright for me.

The image on the left below shows an overexposed image with the exposure turned up and the image on the right shows an underexposed image with the exposure turned down. See what the histogram is doing in these images.

2. White balance

Simply put, white balance is the adjustment on your camera that reads the color temperature of the light you are shooting in in relation to neutral white. A perfect white balance should show white to be white as perceived in reality and there are no color casts that distorts the whiteness of white. You can, however, go for a warm white or a cool white by adjusting the white balance sliders. Generally speaking, what you don’t want is for white to look too yellow or orange or too cold like with a strong blue cast. Compare both photos below: too cool on the left and too warm on the right.

3. Contrast

There is nothing rocket science about contrast in my opinion. It is simply to do with the strength of the blacks on the photo. After the adjustments above, our photo is still looking very flat. All that’s needed is a fiddle on the blacks, shadows, highlights and light areas. Just remember not to clip your blacks or whites or if you want a bit more contrast, not too much clipping. You can also use the curves tab (the one that shows a grid with a curvy line) for contrast adjustments.

I also played with the other sliders to get the result I wanted on the images above. Just do so gently – a touch here and there rather than extreme adjustments.

Remember, you are only after a clean edit at this stage. The images above show the same edits on the standard and color profiles. The results are different so deciding on your color profile matters.

4. Noise and Sharpening

If you click on to the third tab which shows two black triangles, you get to the panel where you can adjust noise and sharpening. Again, gentle adjustments are needed here.

It is vital to view your photo at 100% so you can see what the adjustments are doing to the image.

Luminance has to do with the smoothness of the pixels. You don’t want to go too much, or you lose definition.

Color has to do with how much the RGB pixels show up and extreme adjustments will either strip your image of color or make the pixels appear too saturated.

Conclusion

Now I have a clean edit, there is still so much I can do to this photo. The eyes are a tad soft so I will need to adjust that. I could add vignettes or change the appearance of the background. I could add sunflares or textures. The possibilities are endless. But most of that has to happen in Photoshop.

I hope this has helped you understand the basics of editing.

Please share your comments below or if you have any questions!

The post A Short Introduction to Basic Photo Editing for Beginners appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Lily Sawyer.

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Twitter sees more users and rising revenues

The social media platform reports better-than-expected results as it plans to minimise "outrage".

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Apple AI accused of leading to man's wrongful arrest

A man is suing Apple after claiming its in-store AI led to his arrest.

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After the Bust, Are Bitcoins More Like Tulip Mania or the Internet?

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Sri Lanka attacks: The ban on social media

Is the ban a sign of things to come for social media firms unable to halt the spread of misinformation?

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Tesla's Elon Musk expects 'robotaxis' to start in US next year

The electric carmaker entrepreneur makes a new promise on driverless vehicles.

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Vodafone named 'worst' mobile network

Annual study of more than 6,000 mobile customers names most and least popular UK network providers.

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This Estonian Start-Up Has Become a Thorn in Uber’s Side

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Home PDF Photography Book v1

A personal photography book of HOME // Feb, 2019. Download: Dropbox Download > Direct Download > How I Prototype my PDF Photography Books in iBooks Author SPREADS

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New video by Tech Insider on YouTube

How Tesla Owners Can Make Money Repurposing Their Cars Into Robotaxis
Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk unveiled a plan to repurpose Tesla vehicles into robotaxis. This would allow owners of Teslas equipped with autonomous functionality to rent out their car while it is not in use via an app. Musk estimates a single robotaxi can make $30,000 a year. He thinks the program can be implemented as early as next year. ------------------------------------------------------ Tech Insider tells you all you need to know about tech: gadgets, how-to's, gaming, science, digital culture, and more. Visit us at: http://bit.ly/1IpULic TI on Facebook: http://bit.ly/1fEbtRI TI on Instagram: http://bit.ly/1S8jzxH TI on Twitter: https://twitter.com/techinsider TI on Amazon Prime: http://read.bi/PrimeVideo INSIDER on Snapchat: https://insder.co/2KJLtVo ------------------------------------------------------ Following is the transcript of the video:

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Beyond Meat Details Plans for Initial Public Offering

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New video by Tech Insider on YouTube

Watch Tesla Unveil Its Full Self-Driving Computer In Under 5 Minutes
Tesla held an event for its investors called Autonomy Investor Day at its office in Palo Alto, CA. The event showcased software upgrades to the self-driving technology and new hardware called the Tesla FSD or Full-Self Driving computer. ------------------------------------------------------ Tech Insider tells you all you need to know about tech: gadgets, how-to's, gaming, science, digital culture, and more. Visit us at: http://bit.ly/1IpULic TI on Facebook: http://bit.ly/1fEbtRI TI on Instagram: http://bit.ly/1S8jzxH TI on Twitter: https://twitter.com/techinsider TI on Amazon Prime: http://read.bi/PrimeVideo INSIDER on Snapchat: https://insder.co/2KJLtVo ------------------------------------------------------ Following is the transcript of the video:

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Samsung Postpones Rollout of Galaxy Fold

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Google Employees Say They Faced Retaliation After Organizing Walkout

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Guidelines for Creating Your Photography Contract

The post Guidelines for Creating Your Photography Contract appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.

If you’re any level of a photographer working with clients, you need to have a contract.

When photo jobs go awry, it’s often due to a lack of communication.

A contract protects not only you but also your client in the event of any unmet expectations.

Here are some inclusions you may want to consider.

Who is the agreement between?

First of all, you need to state clearly who the contract is between and identify each party. You can identify yourself as “the Company”, and your client as “the Client.” The photo shoot itself can be referred to as “the Event.”

Note that the agreement supersedes any prior agreements between the parties, and that the only way to add to the agreement is to do so in writing, and that this amendment must be signed by both parties.

In short, if anything changes between the signing of the agreement and shoot day, you’ll need another contract.

What are the reservations?

You should have a section on your contract about the Reservations.

This means you note the date the shoot is scheduled for, and your policies about rescheduling, postponement and cancellation.

Make sure the client is very clear on the consequences of any of these changes.

For example, many photographers require a 50% non-refundable deposit in case of cancellation, so they don’t miss out on potential work that could have been booked that day.

Safety

I recommend having a section that notes that you as the photographer/company have the right to terminate coverage and leave the location if you experience inappropriate, threatening, hostile or offensive behaviour from a person at the event that calls your safety into question. This may be a rare occurrence, but it’s worth putting into your contract so you can assert your rights in case you’re a victim in an unsafe situation.

This could be relevant to a female wedding photographer being harassed by drunken guests, for example.

Shooting time and additions

Note that shooting time commences at the scheduled start time and ends at the scheduled time, regardless of when the client shows up. If a client is very late, then the shoot goes to the agreed upon time and no later.

I also highly recommend that if you’re a commercial photographer, that you state clearly that the client or a representative from their company must attend the shoot to provide creative direction and approve the final images.

You’re not responsible for the final aesthetic if they are not there to provide feedback and approval.

Furthermore, reserve the right to cancel the shoot and retain the deposit if the client or their representative does not attend.

Seriously. This happens.

Expenses incurred

This is where you might note that there could be additional expenses incurred that may not be part of the original quote, such as parking, props on a fashion or product shoot, or groceries on a food shoot.

These kinds of expenses are usually TBD (to be determined) and not part of the initial estimate. This should be made clear up-front so you don’t end up taking a cut from your earnings to cover these things.

Responsibilities

You are responsible for a lot on a shoot, but certain things are unforeseen and out of your control. Things such as obtrusive staff, lateness of the client and staff, the weather, schedule complications, incorrect addresses provided by the client, or restrictions of the chosen location.

Venue and Location Limits

Unless you’re shooting at your studio or a rental, the client is usually responsible for providing an appropriate place for the photographic work to take place.

If the venue is found to be limited in space or otherwise hinders you from carrying out your work in a safe manner (or one that doesn’t allow you to produce the desired result), reserve the right to request moving to another location or cancel the shoot without penalty.

Permits

Who is responsible for securing permits?

The second you put a tripod down in a public place, you can very likely get asked to move along by a police officer or other type of city official. This can be disastrous on a commercial shoot where the location has been scouted and is essential to the storyboard or narrative of the final images.

Permits can take some time to secure, so keep this in mind if this job falls on you.

Film & copyright

The photography you produce for a client still belongs to you, as the creator of those images. A lot of clients think the images belong to them because they are paying you money to produce them. They need to be educated on copyright.

In the commercial world, clients commission you to produce photos that align with their brand. They then pay you a separate fee to license those images for a specific use and time frame.

You should have a separate Usage Agreement in addition to your contract that outlines usage parameters.

Limit of liability

In the unlikely event that you are not able to perform to the guidelines laid out in the contract due to injury, illness, an “act of God,” or another event outside of your control, you should not be held responsible.

You should, however, make every effort to reschedule the shoot. If this isn’t possible, then ordinarily all payment received for the event should be returned.

If digital files are lost, stolen, or destroyed beyond your control, including but not limited to hard drive or equipment malfunction, your liability is to return all payments.

The limit liability for a partial loss of originals should be a prorated amount of exposures lost based on the percentages of the total number of originals.

Capture and delivery

You are not liable to deliver every image taken at an event or shoot.

The number of final files to be delivered is up to the photographers discretion or is based on an agreement made between the photographer and client before the signing of the contract.

In this section, you can make a note of when you’ll be delivering the files by and how they will be delivered, such as JPG or TIFF files.

Post-production and editing

The final post-production and editing styles, effects, and overall aesthetic of the image are at your discretion unless you’re working on a specific type of job where the editing will be done in-house, say by a magazine or ad agency.

Nothing is worse than working hard on editing and then having clients put crazy Instagram filters on your images. Prohibit any alteration to your photographs unless there is an agreement with the client as to what those alterations will be, like putting text on a photo.

Payment schedule

If you’re asking for a deposit (and I hope you are), make sure to put that in your contract.

How you manage payment for the remainder is up to you. Many photographers allow thirty days for receipt, however, any late payment after that is subject to interest – usually 15-18%.

Also, note a policy around any NSF charges and if there are any consequences the client needs to be aware of in terms of not paying on time.

For example, you can state in your contract that non-payment after three months is subject to legal action.

Pricing

At the end of the agreement, I suggest that you lay out the agreed upon pricing.

If you don’t have a separate usage agreement, you can include the usage terms here.

For my commercial work, I typically don’t give my clients a usage agreement until the images have been paid for in full and prohibit the use of my images until then.

I find this works well for me. Clients should not be using your images publicly unless they have paid for them, or it is a violation of your copyright.

I even state this term on my invoices and draw their attention to this in my email communication upon sending it.

Some clients can take a long time to pay you unless you draw specific boundaries around payment and the use of your images.

Signature field

There should be an area where both you and the client can sign and date the contract.

It’s best if you use electronic signature software such as Hello Sign so that clients don’t have to spend their time physically downloading and scanning a signed contract back to you. Everyone is busy, right?

If you use a CRM software, it may already offer such a feature. For example, I use Dubsado, which is a CRM system for creatives. I can send clients emails and contracts directly from within the user interface.

I have all the other features of a client management system for around the same price I would have to pay for signature software alone.

In Conclusion

Hopefully, this has given you some idea of what you can put in your contract.

Be sure that your contracts are dated and signed before you consider a job booked.

Go over them with the client and make sure the terms and conditions are understood. A lot of people don’t bother to read stuff before they sign it and you don’t want to deal with any surprises.

Please note that this post is for educational purposes only and doesn’t constitute legal advice, as I am not a lawyer and cannot advise in that capacity.

To make sure that any or your contract or written agreements are legally binding, and will cover you in an event of a discrepancy, please contact an attorney.

The post Guidelines for Creating Your Photography Contract appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by Darina Kopcok.

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Patina

Patina— wear and tear, and “improvement” of aesthetics through use, wear, tear, the effects of time as beautiful! For example patina in: Wrinkles Changing color of bronze, brass, denim, leather, and other materials. The beautiful cracks in a bowl or teacup (kinsiguri— Japanese art of highlighting imperfections with golden glue). In photography, patina is: Grit […]

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7 Steps to Perfect White Portrait Backgrounds in the Studio

The post 7 Steps to Perfect White Portrait Backgrounds in the Studio appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

Photographing subjects on a white background is one of those things that looks easy from the outside. However, once you start digging into the details, it turns out it’s not quite as simple as it seemed at first glance.

Unfortunately, being able to shoot on a white background is one of the most useful skills for you to have in all sorts of photography including portraits and still life. Even if you hate it stylistically, you will eventually have plenty of people ask you for a pure white background.

When you get the technique right, there are a whole host of things you can easily do with your photos, such as cutting your subjects out for composites. Even when your technique isn’t perfect, there are a host of post-processing options to get you, and your images, there in the end.

However, this article outlines a process to help you get perfect results straight out of the camera every time. If you’re handling a high volume of images – whether that be portraits or products – this may save you countless hours in post-production.

What you need

You will need a few lights for this technique. In this example, there are three lights and a reflector.

To get started with shooting on a white backdrop in a studio, you will need a few things.

• At least two studio strobes with modifiers or flashguns (three or four would be preferable and will make your life easier). Softboxes are the easiest option for your background lights.
• A light-colored backdrop. White is preferable, but this technique will work easily with anything up to mid-grey. It is more than possible to do it with darker backdrops but to avoid complications, stay light when you can.
• Space. You will need space to get the best results. As described below, you will need to keep enough room between your subject and the background to help prevent spill from the background lights falling on your subject. For portraits, this could easily take ten to fifteen feet of space in addition to the distance you are from the subject. For smaller subjects, space is much less of an issue.
• (Optional) A light meter. Because we’re dealing with moderately precise ratios, a light meter will help you here. You can get by without one, but it does make it easier.

Step One – Choose your aperture

Before you do anything with your lights or your subject, the first step in this process is to choose the aperture you want to shoot at. This choice is going to be the basis for everything else you do in this process. Anything from f/8 to f/4 is a good bet for studio portraits, but you can choose anything you like. Your only real limitation here is the power output of your lights.

If you choose f/11, then your backgrounds lights will need to be set at least two stops brighter, which would be f/22. You may struggle to achieve that with low-powered strobes. If that’s the case, then you will have to choose a larger aperture for your final image.

For the remainder of this article, the chosen aperture will be f/5.6.

Step Two – Light your background

When lighting your background, take the time to ensure that it is evenly lit. This will ensure that all of your background is white with no darker tones creeping into the sides and corners.

Once you know your aperture, the next step is to set up your background light(s). If you can, use large, directional modifiers like softboxes. This will help prevent excess light spilling where you don’t want it. It will also help to ensure that the background is evenly lit from top to bottom, preventing any inconsistencies in exposure in your final images.

Place your lights on either side of your backdrop and pointed towards it at a forty-five-degree angle. Try to position them so that you get even coverage.

Step three – Set the exposure for your background lights

The easiest way to find the exposure for you background is to use a light meter. Don’t worry if you don’t have one, you can still chimp the histogram to make sure it’s overexposed.

With your lights positioned, all you have to do is set the power so that the camera will record your background as pure white. Your background needs to be at least two or three stops brighter than your subject. Because the hypothetical aperture we’re using is f/5.6, that means the backgrounds lights should be at f/16 for three stops of exposure difference.

If you’re using a meter, be sure to check the exposure at the top and bottom of the background and not just the middle.

Step four – Place your subject for a test

On the left, the subject is too close to the background and the light is wrapping around her and lighting her front. Placed a few feet further away, the subject is rendered as a silhouette. (The detail in the darker image is from the overhead fluorescent that I hadn’t turned off yet.)

To figure out where your subject needs to stand, or be placed, put them in front of the background and take a test shot with only the background lights on. If they are far enough away from the background, your subject should be in perfect silhouette, and there should be no light falling on them or wrapping around them in any way.

Where there is light falling on your subject, just move them further away from the backdrop until you achieve that perfect silhouette.

If your exposure is right, you should have no details in your background and no details in your subject.

Because you are lighting a white (therefore reflective) surface, your background is effectively a light source and acts like one. The light from your backgrounds will fall off at a rate governed by the inverse square law. What you are trying to do is to place your subject in a place where the light level drops enough that it has no effect on your subject at your desired aperture.

Step four (part 2) – Flag your background lights

To ensure light isn’t going where you don’t want it, flag your background lights. Here, I’ve used black fabric and covered all but the section of background that will be in the photos.

It may be that you can’t achieve a perfect silhouette of your subject for some reason. This issue can arise from not having enough space to work in, or it could be that your modifiers are producing too much spill. One way to combat this is to flag your lights.

Flagging simply means to block light from where you don’t want it. You can do this in any way that you want. V-flats and black curtains (as in the example images) are both cheap and effective ways to flag your light.

Simply place your preferred flags in a manner that blocks excess light from coming back towards the camera, but doesn’t interfere with the part of the background that will wind up in your composition.

Step 5 – Place your key light

Once the background lights are done, you can light your subject in any way you want.

Now that your background is lit and you know where your subject needs to be, you just need to light your subject. All you have to do is place your light any way that you desire (any lighting pattern will work), and set the power to your desired aperture (f/5.6 in the examples).

Unlike the background lights, you don’t have to worry about what any excess light from your key light is doing. Because you are so far away from the background with a light set to a much lower power, it will have little to no effect on the final exposure of the background. However, do pay attention to what the light is doing off to the sides. If it’s firing into a nearby white wall or another light-colored surface, then that surface will act as a reflector in your images.

Step 6 – Add fill (optional)

Use fill lighting to reduce the impact of heavy shadows in your images. You can use another light if you wish, or a reflector as shown here.

If you want to add a fill light to your set-up, you can now do that as normal. You can fill with another strobe, or you can use a reflector as shown in the example images. The main thing to remember about fill light is that it should be at least one stop lower in power than your key light.

Step 7 – Check your final exposure

With everything set-up, you should have a perfect white background straight out of the camera.

With everything in place, take a test shot at your desired aperture. If your key and fill lights are in your desired position, everything should be spot on and you should now have an image with a perfectly white background straight out of the camera.

That’s it

This isn’t a hard technique, but it does require a fair few steps and a lot of attention to detail. Don’t be put off by any of that. Once you’ve set it up a few times, it will become second nature very quickly. You will also be able to learn how to set it up in a few minutes, potentially saving you a ridiculous amount of time post-processing backgrounds that aren’t perfectly white.

The post 7 Steps to Perfect White Portrait Backgrounds in the Studio appeared first on Digital Photography School. It was authored by John McIntire.

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