Backgrounds For Tabletop Photography

Hi Everyone,

I’m getting ready to do a lot more tabletop photography of products and drinks. My biggest challenge, without spending a ton of money, is getting backgrounds for beneath and behind the products. I’m going to share what I’ve found, from free to expensive.

Free

Look around your house. Do you have furniture with nice wood grain or marble top? You can use these.

Other things around the house that you can use include:

Baking sheets – old and stained
Books – old
Cutting board – wood
Food – Flour, sugar, nuts, star anise, and whatever else you have on hand
Grocery store bags – paper, crumpled then flattened
Kitchen towels – light and whitish colors with texture
Old photographs
Paper – Parchment, paper bags (cut flat and crumple), scrap paper, newspaper, wrapping paper
Wood – old and weathered. Get scrap wood from a hardware store and age it

Cheap

Thrift stores – I get most of my fancy drinking glasses here
Dollar stores – I get a lot of things here
Construction paper – various colors
Fabric – table cloths, tea towels, napkins (cloth, light and whitish colors with texture), bed linen, old clothes, curtains, fabric scraps
Foam core – various colors. Be sure it’s thick enough so it won’t bow
Food – specialty items that compliment your subject
MDF – painted, have the hardware store cut it to size to save time
Plywood – thin, painted or stained, show lots of grain, use both sides
Tiles
Vinyl – with printed textures and patterns

DIY

This gets a little tricky as it depends on your skill level and what you’re trying to make.

Painted foam board is popular. I just painted a piece of 24×30 foam board, and found out that I needed two 12 ounce cans to properly cover the board. I used Krylon Fusion All-In-One textured finish. Desert Sand color. It looks really nice, but that’s $20 in paint and $3 in foam board. Use a different paint on each side so you need less foam board. A little warning, spray painting foam board can make the paper ripple and/or bubble. It would be better to use wood.

Contact paper is another option. Before you do this check out YouTube videos to see how to apply it. They make it look easy, but it’s not. You get wrinkles, bubbles, tears and punctures. I would suggest buying twice as much contact paper as you need until you learn how to apply it properly.

Also, the contact paper will say it’s removable, so it can be repositioned. But with foam board, when you pull it up to reposition it, the contact paper will remove a layer of the foam core paper covering. This changes the foam board surface from smooth paper to very textured paper.

Another option is to use your processing software, I use ON1 Photo RAW, and shoot everything on white or black foam board, then simply replace the white with an image of wood, tile, or something else. ON1 includes a lot of backgrounds, and you can get a lot more free online.

ON1 Photo RAW is at https://on1.sjv.io/15Mjdz and use my 20% discount code, colburn20

I removed the white background from the Buddha statue and replaced it with the cloud image. I used ON1 Photo RAW.

I composited the can images, removed the white background and replaced it with this photo of train tracks at La Posada Hotel, Winslow, Arizona. I used ON1 Photo RAW.

Expensive

This is the easiest, but most expensive, as you’re buying a finished product. These products come in three main categories.

Background paper

These come in rolls of various widths. You will need some kind of stand (store bought or DIY) to hold the roll.

Vendors include:

Vinyl

This is a nice option as vinyl is waterproof and easy to use. But the price can range from $25 to $250, depending on the quality. But if you take care of them, they should last for years. And there’s no frustration with trying to make your own.

Vendors include:

Foam Board With A Texture/Finish On It

These often fold flat and are free standing. They often come with a design on both sides.

Vendors include:

https://vflatworld.com

Having so many choices can make it difficult to decide which option is best for you. In this situation, I ask myself, “Do I have more time than money, or more money than time?” If it’s time, then I do DIY, and hope it works out. If it’s money, then I buy what I need.

Have Fun,
Jeff