Hi, Brendan:
The background I use was purchased here:

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I bought the #39, neutral gray to white in 31" x 43" size.  It is a washable vinyl material, not paper as the URL suggests.

Good Luck!
Bob

I got mine at B-H Photo...

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I have the 31" x 43" studio gray, and trimmed the width a bit to fit it into my photo cube. Thunder gray is also a nice one for lighter-colored pieces. Mine's gotten scratched and stained a bit (thank goodness for Photoshop) so I'll eventually replace it. I have a bigger photo cube (48" x 48") that I need a backdrop for, so I'll be needing the 43" x 63" model next time.

On a budget, you can make your own gradient background image* in something like Photoshop or Illustrator, save it as the biggest JPG file you can handle, then take it to Kinko's (or the UK equivalent if you don't have them) and have it printed on their large format inkjet or laser printer.


* If you'd like me to whip one up, I could.

I just use a monotone grey piece of poster paper with the piece to be photograped on the bottom part and then the paper curved up behind the piece supported by a wall.  That seems to work well for me.  What I need to figure out is how to adjust the color in my digital camera.  I know my pics come out in a color not quite correct because the grey background doesn't always look grey in the photo. 

John West wrote on May 19^th, 2009 at 2:02pm:


You need to set your white balance.  If you can do it manually then get yourself a white balance card.  I use this one.  Multimedia File Viewing and Clickable Links are available for Registered Members only!!  You need to or  

Your camera might be slightly different, but what I do is place the card under the lighting conditions in which I am going to shoot the work piece.  Then I push and hold the WB button on my camera, frame and focus on the wb card and take a picture of it.  Any subsequent shots taken will be referenced to that.

If you can't set your wb manually, then there are probably a bunch of different options that will do it for you automatically.  You would see various symbols for either fluorescent light, sunlight, tungsten light etc.  Choose the one that is closest to the conditions you are shooting under.

Hope that helps.