Colour mixing

Wow! The transition between the scenery and backdrop is really effective.  I haven't done a photo backdrop yet, but I imagine that doing this effectively requires careful matching of colours in the scenery to colours in the photo. I'm referring to dominant things like the road and vegetation colours, which you've accomplished nicely.

I don't know if you've already explained this in a previous post, but I'm interested to know how you approached matching the colour of the road in your scene to the asphalt in the photo.  

Also, I'm assuming that you took the photos that you used for the backdrops.  What focal length did you use, again, thinking of that second image where the shot was taken up the street?

Did you cut around every object in the backdrop (photo) in order to show the painted sky behind it?  I could imagine having difficulty cutting the sky out of the photo around things like telephone poles and around the outer edges of trees where they're not very dense. 

Sorry for the million questions! 

Nice choices, there

I really like the selection of the key details in your work-- it makes it look realistic and believable without crossing over into caricature.

Photo Backdrops

Hunter,

No problem on the questions. It's how we learn!

There's no right answer when it comes to photo backdrops. It's nearly impossible to line everything up, especially when you're trying to match roads, sidewalks and the like. I've been lucky in that my colors have matched up pretty close without having to do a lot of adjustments, either to the photos or to the scenery. But in person you can definitely see a difference between the foreground and background.

The photos were taken using a 19mm wide angle lens. For the road shots I stood in the dead center of the street (being very aware of traffic levels and wearing a reflective safety vest). The building shots were taken at a slight angle to help with the perspective. Again, it's near impossible to make photo backdrops look good from all angles.

They were then modified in Photoshop to fit the available space and scaled to match road widths. In most cases the photos are one long panorama with the individual pictures altered to make them work as a whole.

The photos were printed on regular paper using a color laser printer. I then trimmed around the major objects and removed the printed sky. What constitutes a major elements changes from day to day. You loose a lot of the fine details, especially with large trees and powerlines. It became a case of "how steady is my hand" and "do I really want to cut out this light pole". The backdrop at NW 100th Street (photo #2) took more than an hour to cut around all the pieces.

Best bet is to take photos and print out low res copies, tack them up with painter's tape and see how it works for you.

James

Quick question...

Quick question James, Looking back on it, would you have varied the color of the sky a bit? Like, using your blue sky color and have it fade to a lighter color near the horizon (or perhaps keep that light blue color at the horizon and have it fade to a slightly darker color higher in the sky?)  Are you happy with the uniform blue the sky is now?

I ask this, because I am just about to the point on my own layout where I'll need to be deciding what to do with my backdrop real soon.

Backdrop color

I'm happy with the solid blue for a backdrop.

First off it takes all the guess work and struggles out of painting a backdrop. One roller and one can later and you're good to go. You just need to make sure that you pick a good shade of blue. Nothing sapphire... but also not too white. Otherwise photography becomes difficult.

The photo backdrops still remain a "nice to have" instead of a "need to have". What changed for me was how easy they were to implement. If they had been in any way difficult I would have moved on.

Operations were first and foremost in my mind when designing and building this layout. It is not meant to be a scenic tour de force. I find that I'm so focused on my train that I hardly notice the background.

James