Mottled designs are among the most sought after patterns in professional photography today. They provide a pattern of colors and tones that allow your subject to stand out and remain the focus of the shot, while beautiful and dynamic colors accentuate the background imagery. StudioWorld’s Production Team struck out to improve on these ever so popular designs. In addition to the improvement in the designs themselves, a dynamic outcome is our expressive 3D mottled photo backdrops.

A Brand New Process

A yearning to improve backdrop designs and outcomes is what got the ball rolling for our Production Team. They knew that by reengineering the manufacturing process they could produce a drop that would go beyond top quality mottled designs and create something different, which addsdepth and texture to the design as a whole. The Team knew that while both dyes and paints can and do produce brilliant backdrops, only paints can create 3 dimensional motifs in a random pattern thus improving the aesthetics. They began by following the process, the same regimen used to create crushed backdrops. They use a cold solution based in environmentally friendly paints. Once the paint is applied to the milled muslin they allow each backdrop to dry in natural sunlight, like hand painted or washed, but unlike them in crushed form. Normally the paint would be smoothed across the muslin before drying, but with these drops that is not done at all. The combination of the cold paint solution, how it is applied, and the fact that the paint is not intentionally smoothed, creates a dynamic 3 dimensional look and random texture of 3 dimensional motifs all over the backdrop. It takes longer to produce and requires more critical handling, but the process brings out the vibrancy of the paints and adds visual depth. It also creates contrasting darker and lighter portions within the design itself which assists in creating the 3 dimensional motifs. It took a good amount of experimenting and calculated changes to the process, but in the end the result is a truly 3D mottled photo background.

The team at StudioWorld is among the first in the world to offer this particular design in its perfect and present form. While other variations of “3D photo backdrops” are currently on the market, they are most often random variations of mottles, or much costlier variations of scenic or abstract designs that depict depth based upon how the artistry itself is put together. Brick walls or designs with spheres are common examples of what others provide. While StudioWorld will have designs like these available in coming months, we are currently the only backdrop provider who stocks mottled 3D designs with unarguable depth. A unique byproduct of these processes, coupled with the amount of paint used to create the design, results in a reversible backdrop. The back side presents you with a lighter colored mottled design, just like hand painted or washed, but in 3D it’s a completely different texture or pattern on the back, giving you double the value and double the background options for your shoots.