Easy Photography Backgrounds: Particle Boards
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We've gotten a lot of questions about what we use for our backgrounds, and so this post is dedicated to one of our most-used materials - particle board. Any shot you see on our site that has a horizon line or a two-tone background was made using particle board. Let me show you an example:
Basically the horizon line is the line that separates the background from the foreground (bottom) in the image. If there is a line there, that means we used particle board or some other flat surface like tile. If it's smooth without a line, we used something smooth like seamless paper or fabric.
Particle board is super easy to get - you can purchase it at basically any hardware store like Home Depot or Lowes and it's only about $7 a sheet. We purchase the 2x4 size and it works perfectly for most product shots. The reason we use particle board instead of plywood is that if you try to paint plywood, you'll still see the wood grain through the paint. Particle board is ground up wood so the grain is gone and it's super smooth. Below is an image from when we first started shooting and tried to use plywood. You can see the grain, especially in the light green in the back.
In order to get the colors we want, I use interior paint from the hardware store. It's easier since I'm almost always going to the hardware store for shoots and not always going to a craft store so it eliminates extra stops and the quality of the paint is much better. It's also easier to match brand colors and you can save the swatches in your client folders so that if you shoot for the same client again you can just take in the swatches and have them mix the paint again. Also, a lot of this paint comes with primer already in it so you usually don't need to do a coat in between changing colors. I also find that you need less coats, usually just two.
I usually just eyeball colors to get them as close to the client colors as possible since they'll photograph a little different with lights and we'll have to edit them in photoshop to make them exact anyway, but I just found a really cool tool for quickly finding a match at the hardware store so you don't have to stand there for hours holding swatches up to your phone (me every week before finding this). It's a site called Easy RGB and it can match and RGB color profile to paint colors. If you haven't heard about this, RGB is the mix of red, green, and blue that your monitor uses to display that particular color. Your client should be able to give you the RGB color profiles of their brand colors, but if they can't for some reason, you can get them by putting their logo or color into Adobe illustrator and photoshop and eye dropping the image.
In Illustrator, eye drop the color, then double click the square with the color and it will pop up this window with the color profile. You can see the RGB values that you can use to input into the site. Just a note - make sure to do this with their actual logo or brand colors, if you screenshot them before uploading the colors will be dull.
When you put the RGB values into Easy RGB, it will pull up a bunch of paint colors and you can pick the one that's the closest. Home Depot has most competitor colors in their system so if you give them the name of a color thats by Benjamin Moore or someone else, they can most likely make it. As I mentioned, you'll probably have to photoshop the colors to make them exact, but this is the easiest way I've found to get close.
I always paint with a roller, its SO much easier than a brush. Trust me. Do not try to paint these boards with a brush unless you want to hate yourself. You can also paint each side a different color which gives you tons of options without having to purchase as many boards.
When you paint the boards, the paint will create a little bit of texture which you can leave or wipe in photoshop depending on the look you're going for. You can definitely paint them over several times before they get too textured, but eventually you'll need to sand them down and smooth them out again. We definitely recommend using an electric sander for this - this is the one that we use.
One thing I've learned is that dark colored paint tends to be more transparent than light colored paint, so if you're painting a darker color, you're more likely to need primer. Also, if you're creating a pattern plan to paint the lighter color over the darker one and it'll save you a little work.
Ok, now that you know all about painting, here's a list of all the ways you could use particle boards in your shoot!
Wait, hold on. I just realized I didn't tell you how we typically set up our boards! We place the bottom on the table we use for all our shoots and then lean the back against our background stand and secure it with clamps. It's as easy as that! You can definitely just use a folding table and push it against the wall so the back board can lean if you want.
Stay tuned for a list of all the ways you can use particle board in your shoots!
Is it the weekend yet?
Elle