topic Re: Vase on black in Share Your Photos

Vase on black

stevet1 — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 19:09:53 GMT

Vase on black

T8i 1/10, f/9, ISO 12800

Steve Thomas

Re: Vase on black

LeeP — Sun, 28 Jun 2026 23:05:51 GMT

Very captivating

Re: Vase on black

stevet1 — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 01:28:42 GMT

Lee,

Thank you.

This, and a couple of others that I have done recently, are actually double exposures.

I took one shot with my lens cap on, making a totally black picture. Using that as my background, I copy and paste, or layer another picture on top of it.

Then I go in and with a black eraser, erase any lingering background from the second picture. The result is something that is floating in space and almost three dimensional, don't you think?

Steve Thomas

Re: Vase on black

LeeP — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 04:25:08 GMT

It's quite the effect.

Re: Vase on black

LucyLou — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:30:19 GMT

Love this. It's captivating, drawing the viewer in. Nice job!

Re: Vase on black

SignifDigits — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 16:42:45 GMT

Steve, thanks for sharing the pics and especially for sharing the technique. I was wondering how you were getting that perfectly deep black background!

Re: Vase on black

stevet1 — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 12:39:42 GMT

Here is the same technique I used in reverse.

High key.

Double exposure. I took the first shot using a sheet of typewriter paper. Copied and pasted the second shot of some gladiolas and then removed any lingering background with a white eraser.

1/250, f8, ISO 12800.

Steve Thomas

Re: Vase on black

SignifDigits — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 13:07:16 GMT

Steve, thanks for sharing that. The black approach seems much more forgiving of fringes and pleasing to my eye. I'm not sure when I would use the white, but I'm sure there are some situations when it would be just the perfect approach. I normally don't work with layers, but the photo club has a category for submissions so I played around and made this one for funsies. That's the shadow of me and the wife hand in hand on a sidewalk in Iceland under the Gateway to the West.

Re: Vase on black

stevet1 — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 15:15:10 GMT

SignifDigits,

Very cool.

Steve Thomas

Re: Vase on black

JFG — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 16:49:19 GMT

Nice shot Steve, great composition ! I like the blues and greens on the black background. It just happens that blue is my color 😉

Re: Vase on black

SignifDigits — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 19:07:01 GMT

Steve, one more question, if you don't mind. I'm assuming the background of the vase picture is most easily eliminated if it is all one color (I would say green screen, but you had green, so say perhaps grey or orange or something along those lines)?

In lifting the shadow I had a lot of work getting the rocks and such gone. Since it was a shadow I maxed contrast and highlight and shadows but still had to burn and dodge/erase a lot and then I burned in or (stamped, don't recall really) to ensure our shadow was all black.

Just curious how to make the process as easy as possible.

Re: Vase on black

stevet1 — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 20:44:09 GMT

SignifDigits,.

I'm using an image editing program called Irfanview. There are 48 different color variations (although several are variations of the same color, like cobalt blue vs.royal blue, etc.). Just go into your Edit tab and choose, "Show Paint Dialog" You could, if you want, draw an outline freehand of anything you want, and then choose "fill color", and fill it in with any color you want

The program is free and pretty easy to use and works with jpgs and RAW.

I do my initial editing with the RAW file in DPP4 and then convert it to jpgs for web posting and storage purposes.

I don't like the sharpening feature in Irfanview. It's too overdone. I'd rather do that in DPP4. Same with the "Convert to Grayscale".

Steve Thomas

Re: Vase on black

SignifDigits — Tue, 30 Jun 2026 21:04:01 GMT

Thanks Steve. I'll check that out.