What Are Digital Photography Backgrounds?

With film photography, a photographer was limited to actually taking the picture that was in front of his camera at the time. This would mean either traveling to really cool and awesome places for your backdrop of choice, or bringing the outside into the studio via cloth backdrops that never quite looked real. Either way it was a very expensive venture. Yes, some manipulation could be done in the darkroom, but it was a tedious and messy process.

Then came digital photography, and the game changed drastically. Now, with digital prints on a computer screen, manipulation of pictures is easy. Literally anything is possible. Want to show your dog perched at the top of the Eifel Tower in France? Not a problem. As long as you have photo editing software and a picture of the Eifel Tower and another of your dog, you are good to go. Simply cut out the image of your dog and drag him into the Tower picture and place him where you want him. Needless to say, this can be a very fun process. The possibilities are endless.

The problem, of course, is that we are limited to pictures that we actually have. This is where digital photography backgrounds come into play. There are several online companies that sell packages of these backdrops or even monthly access to their entire database.

There are many categories to choose from, too. There are packages designed specifically for wedding backdrops. Can't afford a wedding at the beach? That's okay, you can still have the pictures!

There are also packages made with the aim of creating awesome senior pictures or sports photos. You can even place your cut out image on the cover of a magazine and then type your own headline. Kind of like your own personal cereal box featuring your own kid in full soccer uniform. In fact, I'm sure they have a background for that, too. Cool, right?

Now instead of picking just one background for a shot, you can take the photograph in your own home or studio and then add the backdrops later. Much better than lugging all of your photographic equipment around to get those great location shots. Plus your options are much greater too. No one would want to go to the expense of an airline ticket to get a picture of themselves in front of the Washington Space Needle. Now you don't have to, and yet you can have the resulting picture.

And the best news of all is that digital photography backgrounds are only the beginning--the very tip of the iceberg so to speak--of the digital photography revolution. There is much, much more to come.