Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I recently created a light box to take pics of the snakes on a white background. My camera is a canon powershot sd800. The pics have been coming out great, however some of my snakes colors really pop more against a black background than a white one. When I try to go with a flat black background, it comes out grey, and totally screws up the color of the snake. I have adjusted my exposure and played with the white balance a little bit and nothing seems to help. What is the simplest way to get repeatable high quality picks on a black background?

Open the photos in an image editor (like photoshop or the GIMP) and adjust the black point. Black backgrounds are tough though. A big part of it is the texture of the background itself. If it is too reflective, it can ruin the shot.

This leucistic retic was placed on a piece of black cloth. I did have to adjust the exposure and black point. You can still see the background material, but it isn't distracting.

Wrinkes in the cloth will show up lighter, so you need to make sure it is smooth -

This Rubber Boa's background shows some reflections, but they aren't too distracting. I tried to dodge a few of the brighter spots in Photoshop -

For arboreal animals, it is easier to just put them on a branch a few feet in front of some black cloth. As long as it isn't reflective, you can get a nice black background. (I wish this one wasn't so sidelit)

Here the snake is hanging from a limb being held by a guy with a black T-Shirt on -

Chris
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Thanks

I will try that. I am a GIMP noob, so we'll see how it goes.