Every time we visit my sister in Los Angeles, we line up for hours to catch the taping of Jay Leno. On the set, in pre-taping studio lights, his desk looks lifeless dull gray-brown, but once the full studio lights come on and taping begins, wow, the piece comes to life -- you see the woodgrain, the "true" television color of the desk.

Same with backdrops. What looks pretty dull to the human eye in ambient natural light can become a vibrant piece of cloth under good studio lights. The colors, contrast, details, blending, and saturation of the backdrop are really a function of the reflected light.

What your eye sees and the camera sees can be quite different. But it can also mean surprises, hence our guarantee: "If the backdrop you bought from us does not perform as you expected under your lighting conditions, we are happy to exchange it to something that you think will work better."

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1. A simple rule to remember in selecting your backdrop: The better your lighting system is, the more color and contrast you will punch out of the cloth. You can obtain multiple effects from your backdrop if you learn how to light it in different ways. Give the same backdrop to 5 photographers, and you'll get 5 different moods and looks. If you don't have good studio lights and mainly work with ambient light with fill-in flash, select a backdrop that has more pronounced contrast (tell us to put more contrast to it).

2. Another obvious point: If you want the backdrop to look darker or less mottled, put less light on it, or move it farther away from your subject light boxes and reduce the amount of light spilling on it.

3. Color accuracy: The only way to see accurate color on the web is with a Macintosh running Explorer (or Safari?) with ColorSync ON viewing images with embedded color profiles on calibrated monitors. That's a tall order -- monitor ages differ, gamma points differ, white points differ, calibrations, as a rule, are all over the place, profiles mismatch.

After some 30 years in photography, a word of wisdom to you: Don't get overly anxious about backdrop colors, there are better things to worry about -- like marketing your business. When I do catalog work, one of the hardest things is to have the backdrop look the same in each shot -- I always end up tweaking it in PhotoShop to correct the color shifts. But that's what photography is: playing with light and recording the reflected light -- as you know, it can be exciting and oh, so frustrating sometimes.

Save yourself a lot of aggrevation: a) select a close-match backdrop, b) you REALLY must shoot with it with your typical lighting, experiment with different lighting techniques -- your eye and the camera don't always agree on the reflected photons, c) understand that we work with you all the way to the smile on your client's face, we'll tweak it, give you another to try, try different options -- YOU ARE NEVER STUCK with a BACKDROP that does not work for you. Every purchase from us is a no-risk venture!

4. The tweaks One great way to get different effects and moods from your backdrop is to use spot lights (e.g., from floor, from side) in parts of the backdrop and leave other areas in dark to alter the chiaroscuro of the backdrop. Also, you can use gels to shift color cast.

Dance Studio Backdrops: It's a tough call but sometimes you have to take into account the stage lighting -- if the stage lights are strong, your backdrop selection should take this into account -- don't select a backdrop that is very light -- the stage lights might wash out the color while you are busy getting the perfect exposure set to the performers. It's safer to work with medium (luminance close to and darker than skin tones) density backdrops.

Don't store the backdrop in a bag, dyes are organic compounds, and you could end up with a smelly backdrop (I hear Phoebe singing "smelly cat, smelly cat, it's not your fault".) There are better ways to make an impression on your clients!

Let her breathe when in storage, dry shelf in the studio or basement will make it happy. For transportation (especially for oversize backdrops) get a gym or hockey bag or use a construction-grade garbage bag (Home Depot has them). Just don't leave it in the bag when you come home.

Don't fold backdrops (you'll see the creases in photos), instead crush pack for transportation. Creases will be random.

For very smooth look backdrop (canvas-like portrait application), iron the back drop on cotton setting (use a slightly moistened cloth between the iron and the backdrop), then duct-tape one end to a 10ft plastic ABS pipe (Home Depot, gray or black 2" pipe) and roll up for storage and transportation. To the top end you can attach a 1x2 piece of wood (best if you use two pieces, and sandwich the cloth between them, screw pieces together, drill holes for backdrop stands).

(See photos on right) If you want to travel light (and who doesn't?) use MacGyver tips for a quick hang without poles and crossbars. Get the orange-tipped woodworking clamps from Home Depot, attach wire (bits of string or eletrical copper wire) through clamp hole (remove the plastic handle) and hook with padded quick-release clamps to door frames, T-bar ceiling, the tallest member of the family (just kidding), etc.

To prove to your wife that buying that $700 table saw was an absolute necessity, build a "muslin stretcher" for smooth look. Go to your lumber store and get 2 pieces of 1x3 and 2 pieces of 2x2 and build a stretcher frame. Then clamp the muslin to one side, stretch it and clamp the other side -- smooth look for a few bucks. You can even use some weights (sand bags) on the floor piece to tune it up even better. (Frame is behind the backdrop but shown here semi-transparent.)

We also carry factory-dyed solid milled backdrops in Black Muslin, Heavy Black (blocks out light), Bleached Super White, 18% Photographer's Gray, and Sky Blue. Some are rated FR fire retardant for public area use to keep the Fire Marshall bubbly.