Family Digital Backdrops

What is in this collection

It helps to think in seasons. All year: a cream high-key painted canvas, a sage plaster wall with white wainscoting, tiered apple boxes on grey seamless, a brownstone stoop, a weeping willow by a pond, a golden wheat path and a muted soft play playroom. Autumn and Thanksgiving: a pumpkin patch wagon, hay bale seating by a split-rail fence, a white farmhouse porch, a rustic barn, a harvest fireplace, a plank swing under a golden oak and a long Thanksgiving table. Spring and summer: a tulip field bench, an orchard in blossom, an Easter brunch conservatory, a white clapboard porch with bunting, a bell tent campsite and a Victorian bandstand. Christmas: a tree lot at dusk, a four-poster bed on Christmas morning, a boot room with a sledge and a barn conversion great room. Faith and culture: a Diwali marigold curtain with diyas, an Eid majlis lounge, a Ramadan mashrabiya screen, a Hanukkah window with candles, red New Year doors with kumquat trees and a christening chapel aisle. For parents' days there is breakfast in bed, a carpenter's workshop and a fishing jetty.

Fitting the whole family in

Family digital backdrops have one job the others do not: fitting everyone in. Each scene is sized for one to three, four to six, or seven or more people, and many have somewhere to sit. The brownstone stoop lets you arrange a big family in tiers, the apple boxes do the same for up to six, and the hay bales work outdoors. As family photography backgrounds they suit seasonal minis, where one studio setup becomes an autumn porch in October and a Christmas morning bedroom in December. As family photo booth backgrounds they work at reunions, christenings and holiday parties; see photo booth backgrounds. For more seasonal rooms, see Christmas family and fall; for babies, newborn.

Tips for using these scenes

• Pick by group size first. Filter by people: the hay bales, the Thanksgiving table, the brownstone stoop, the barn dance stage, the barn conversion, the Eid majlis lounge and the Victorian bandstand hold seven or more.
• Seat the adults, stand the children. In seated rooms such as the harvest fireplace or the plaid sofa, photograph adults on a seat of a similar height, and keep children's feet on the floor line with a soft shadow beneath them.
• Shoot the group together. One group photo lit from the scene's side blends far better than people cut out one at a time. Use landscape for groups of seven or more and square for holiday card fronts.

Big families are easier to shoot in small groups and combine; the Photoshop guide has a section on groups and seated poses.