How I got my hands on the perfect photography backdrops!
Then I decided to order myself some A1 prints. They work out to be so much cheaper than buying huge rolls of adhesive or paper where you won’t even use 80% of it. A1 is the perfect size. You can get the prints for around £5/£6 each which is so affordable for a realistic looking backdrop of anything you choose. I’ve ordered rolls of paper before that cost me nearly £20 and it barely ever gets used, this is such a better solution and so much more affordable. You need a pretty large and high quality image for print however, so you can have a look around online for some free stock images or if you have a monthly subscription with a stock image site like I do, you can get them off there. I do not recommend sending off a low quality image as you will end up receiving a blurred and pixelated print and it won’t look like a realistic backdrop whatsoever, so make sure it’s 300 DPI.I work as a Graphic Designer so I pay for a monthly subscription with Adobe Stock which is full of thousands and thousands of photographs of everything. I found myself a couple of textures that I liked on there, photographs of a marble worktop and a white wooden floor, just what I’d been looking for in a background. The great thing about this is that you can basically choose a high quality image of anything you want, it can be marble, wood, a pattern, literally anything that you can lie flat to look realistic. I then downloaded the images I wanted, sized them up in Photoshop to an A1 canvas, saved them ready for print and ordered my prints online! It was so easy and they arrived within a couple of days. I’m honestly so happy with how they turned out, I am definitely ordering more in the future.
Here are the images I used & the prints that arrived:
I am in love with how realistic they look, especially in the backgrounds of my blog photos! I ordered these from katebackdrop and it cost me around £15 for the two prints which I think is so good. They are going to last me such a long time. There’s plenty of other printers online as well that do them for prices really similar.They came in a tube so they’re already rolled up and are so easy to store. All you do when you want to use them is lay them out on a flat surface. Mine don’t even roll back up when I lay them out, they just stay flat and then roll back up easily when I’m finished, it’s so ideal! I have a portable table top with my marble adhesive stuck to it, and I just lay that on my bed and then roll out the paper on top for the perfect flat lay background. Also I order them on silk or matte paper not glossy, as you don’t want any light to reflect on them as then your photos won’t look realistic. Especially if you use flash on a dull day but even natural light can reflect and make it look fake. The ones I ordered were on silk paper so they have the slightest reflection but it’s not enough to make them look fake, it’s just enough for a realistic effect.
If you don’t have the luxury of having a real marble table or worktop, or a white wooden floor, then this solution is perfect. I love them and I can’t wait to order more! I’ve used them a couple of times already (the white wooden floorboard one is in the photograph for this blog post above) but here are some examples of the marble one in use:
Let me know if you’ve ever got yourself a backdrop this way before, I’m really into my photography so I reckon I will have rolls and rolls of backdrops soon haha!