Magazine Cover Digital Backdrops

What is in this collection

Studio sets: a seamless backdrop washed in magenta, violet and teal gel light with a low white plinth, a saturated cobalt blue seamless with a white shell chair, a long glossy white catwalk lined with clear acrylic front-row chairs, a green velvet club chair against a grey wall striped with blind shadows, and a sand plaster wave wall with a curved built-in bench. Location sets: a black volcanic sand beach below stepped basalt columns, a mirror-like salt flat reflecting a pink and peach sunset, and a pale pink mid-century front door beside a white breeze-block screen with desert mountains beyond.

Leaving room for the masthead

A cover needs clean space above the subject, and each of these sets leaves it: the cobalt seamless has a wide plain top, the salt flats and basalt beach have open sky, and the catwalk centres a full-length model under the spotlights. None of them has a masthead, a coverline or a barcode, so your own magazine cover template sits on top without clashing. Photographers use them for fashion-style portraits, model tests and senior portraits; event hosts use them as the base layer of a magazine cover photo booth template, where guests pose in front of a plain backdrop and the booth software places them into the scene. See photo booth backgrounds for booth layouts. The catwalk is shared with the prom collection, and the Palm Springs door with the retro collection.

Tips for using these scenes

• Use the portrait file for covers. It is cut from the same scene as the landscape and square files. Keep roughly the top quarter clear for your title, and let the head overlap the title slightly, as real covers do.
• Match hard or coloured light. The Palm Springs door has hard sun from the right; the gel-lit seamless needs magenta and teal edges on your subject. Add coloured rim light in your editor if you shot under white light.
• Add the reflection on the salt flats. The salt flat is a mirror, so duplicate your subject, flip it under their feet and fade it. Without it the subject looks like they are floating.

Building a cover template? The Photoshop guide covers setting up, cutting out and blending your subject before the type goes on.