Studio Background

[Carolea]

After this is approved in RAW, I will need to begin filling in the background.  Would it just be easier to go back to the studio to shoot a plain wall?  This session was originally planned for outdoors, but due to the weather we had to move into my studio which isn't quite large enough for extended family sessions.  I can set up the gray paper & white baseboard again though if that will work best.

[Damien Symonds]

No, gosh, just fix it in PS.

https://www.damiensymonds.net/preventing-banding-in-backdrops/

[Carolea]

I did play with that option, but wondered if it looked odd having the solid backdrop.  I guess if you did the same thing, I'll consider it the best idea!  Thank you!  I had used a gradient layer for my attempt, but am fairly inept when it comes to working with those.  I have several of these to do, so I might be up all night.  Thank you for your help, I'm very grateful!

[Damien Symonds]

Of course you'd need to mask in between all the legs as well.

[Carolea]

I've watched the video twice & have the general idea.  I'm running into a few problems:  when I try to color pick (after clicking on a color stop), the color is always black, and it changes the tab on the gradient editing window, but not on the gradient layer.  Do you know what I'm doing wrong?  Also, is it possible to change the direction of the layer?  It would work better for my situation to have the color stripes going vertical, instead of horizontal.

[Damien Symonds]

If you just press "OK" to that window for a moment, does it take you back to the smaller window?  That's where you'll find the "Angle" setting.  Also make sure "Dither" is checked.

[Carolea]

Yes, I played a bit more & got everything working except how to change the actual layer.  My colors are all chosen, but it doesn't change the colors on the layer.

[Damien Symonds]

That is VERY freakin' weird.  I've never seen it before.

When you press OK and OK to close all the way out of that layer, then double-click it to open it again, are your grey swatches still there?  Or has it  reverted to rainbow again?

[Carolea]

Still a rainbow . . . should I just start from scratch?

[Damien Symonds]

Well, since you have to do your raw editing again anyway ...