Using computer generated photos for backdrops

Model Railroader Layouts and layout building
1

This month’s article by Pelle Soeborg and his beautiful printed backdrops has me really thinking about which direction to go. He traveled to America, took photo’s of the mountains, adjusted them to his needs with Photoshop and had them printed at a copy store. They really look very good and would be perfect for my layout. I model the same desert scenery he does, although my layout is 100 years earlier. My layout has a rushed painted backdrop that looks ok but I was always planning going back and redoing them when I had the time.

My first thought is why bother with painting. Maybe I should go the photo route. How much experience does everyone have with this kind of backdrop? What kind of camera do you use? How difficult is it to use photoshop or some similar program? Are the printers for this kind of work that available? How hard is it to mount them on hardboard? I know Backdrop warehouse has Death Valley photo backdrops but I wounder whether technology hasn’t gone past that point where we can easily make our own.

I’m tempted to drive to Death Valley this weekend with my camera but I need more advice. - Nevin

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I use photos for my backdrop.

I live in the UK and researched the california areas I wanted to photograph using Google Earth. I entered the locations on my phone so that I had directions available when I hired a car at LA airport. I had already draft printed images from google earth to use as “test” shot.

I then came out to the USA with a mid priced digital camera, (about $250 at todays price in the UK) and took lots of photos at the maximum size. Do not stand in one place and do panoramic shots, choose your scenes and then move 50 - 100 yards at a time and take a sequence of photos with the camera pointing at what will be a right angle to your eventual backdrop. Try to do this with the sun at your back.

When all the photographs are done I use Microsoft Publisher to size and prepare the images. (Photoshop being far too expensive with a steep learning curve.)

I print out using a cheap canon printer ($127 at todays price in the UK)

The printer prints out on A4 paper, so I disguise joins with hills, mountains and rocks. I use heavyweight plain paper and the images are glued with PVA glue

Images can be seen here.

http://kaleyyard.wordpress.com/

Trevor

3

I think one of the most important things to consider is the angle at which you take the picture. It needs to be at the same angle with which you view your layout. For most of us, who may have about a 4 foot high layout, you need to be standing slightly above the scene that you are photographing…looking down at a somewhat shallow angle.

You’re talking about landscapes, but this is especially important with photographing buildings.

In almost all instances of building photos I’ve scene used as backdrops, they are taken from street level.

This means the vantage point looks UP at the building, not DOWN as you do when you look at the buildings on your layout. Consequently, they do not look right when a layout building is placed against it.

I’m convinced that the only photo backdrop of, say, a four story building that I will use will have to be taken while standing from about the 7th floor of another one, or possibly a bridge or hill.

Its not easy to find a good spot to take that picture.

4

This was an experiment I did after seeing an article in MR:

I took our camera, a Sony point-and-shoot that has good optics but is otherwise pretty plain and kind of obsolete by today’s standards. I walked out in front of my house and took a few pictures, in this case settling on the best picture which was taken at about knee height. In this case, the critical thing was getting the persepctive right for “looking down the road.”

I don’t have fancy software. I did some minor editing using Microsoft Paint or Picture Manager, one of the freebies that came with my old computer.

I just printed this on plain white cardstock on my old inkjet printer, and then mounted that on a piece of foamboard because I didn’t want to glue it to the wall. Of course, it was just an experiment that happened to go well enough to keep. One day, maybe I’ll do it on photo paper.

You can go to Staples (or, I assume, other places like that) and give them a disk or thumb drive with a long banner-sized photo you’ve assembled. They can print it on banner paper, one long sheet, so that you don’t have to deal with printing it yourself and piecing it together, along with the resulting seams. The price is pretty reasonable, especially when you compare it to the commercially-made background shops.

My wife has an iPhone, and she was experimenting with “panorama” mode. That’s an option for those with these phones, or cameras that work the same way.

But, my real advice is just “try it.” Use whatever camera you’ve got, even a cell phone camera, and whatever printer you’ve got. Photos cost nothing, and printing costs almost nothing. You can afford to do experiments and take chances. When you’re ready to do it “for real,” you’ll have a much better idea of what you’

5

I have some experience.

I have a basic Canon Rebel (actually I’m on my 3rd.) The lens is probably more important than the camera. Generally you do NOT want wide angle or telephoto shots. Both of those distort the perspective in some way or another. With a normal SLR film camera one would want a lens of 45mm to 60mm. That is most similar to what most people’s eyes see, and what will look best on a backdrop. The equivalent mm on a digital camera will vary. The Canon Rebel has a crop factor of 1.6.

There are bunches of different photo programs. Photoshop is expensive and hard to learn, but Adobe has a less intense “version” called Elements. I think you can even get a trial version for free download. I have full Photoshop but all of my successful backdrops have been made with much simpler photo tools. I have strived to take photos that can be used for backdrops by simple cropping.

I had my own printer an HP755CM. It could print a backdrop 3’ tall and up to 108’ (yes feet) long. I say had because it broke and it is very old (about 15 years). New ones are way out of my budget. Almost all printing and office supply stores Kinko’s, Office Max, Office Depot have this sort of printer. Just put the picture onto a thumb drive and take it to them.

I had about a 50/50 rate for getting a good mounting. I use contact cement so one has to lay it down exactly the first time. I use multiple people to hold edges and lay it from the center out. If a bubble forms one might as well leave it because

6

I have made extensive use of photography for backdrops. Use of the plural, backdropS, is important. I use multiple overlapping layers of backdrop photographs, usually mounted on foam core. These layers include distant horizon, distant trees, nearby trees, and streetscapes/structures. I take pictures with my phone, ‘borrow’ them from my wife, old family slides, and find some on Flickr with the permission of the owner. When I want a specific location I have used screen captures from Google Maps Streetview if the area is near a street or road that is available. I use Photoshop Elements to change sizes, stretch or condense, edit out anachronistic vehicles, and then for printing on photo paper using a photo-quality printer. The latter is not really necessary since they will be … in the background…

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I took about ten photo’s last summer using a Nikon D5000. It was of a lake in the forground with a forest on the other side. Unfotunately our new Mac was only able to stitch three or four together at a time. I did play around with that and adjusted the size so the trees looked the proper scale to the layout. I stuck it temporarily on the backdrop and was surprised by how good it looked.

I will try and get some photo’s of the Alberta foothills with the Rockies in the background this summer. There is a local company here that makes backdrops from photo’s you have taken. They will stitch them together and print it out for you.

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Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I’m going to take my camera out today and find some desert mountains and see if I can come up with some ideas for backdrops.

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I have thought that photos would make the best backdrop for my limited layout (I am NOT an artist) but have no travel $$. Is there any hobby website that offers suitable photos that can be downloaded for this purpose? I like the don’t-reinvent-the-wheel perspective on these forums, and this would be a great subject to share.

Thanks for any help!