How to Quickly and Easily Remove Background Wrinkles From Your Photos

If your portrait or product shot has a wrinkled, creased background, how can you easily clean it up and remove them in Photoshop? Learn how with these simple steps.

If you’re doing product or portrait photography, a nice clean background is just as important as the subject. It’s best to get it right during the shoot but sometimes things happen and you don’t notice any background problems until you get ready for post-production.

This recently happened to me when I was shooting jars of honey for a friend’s business. I was so concerned with the light, setting up my gear, and getting my angles right that I completely overlooked some small wrinkles in the plain, white background sheet I’d draped over the chair.

Thankfully, PiXimperfect showed me a really simple way to clean up the background and remove any creases without losing any details in my subject. I’ve now tried and tested this Photoshop technique in a number of different scenarios and it’s worked an absolute treat each time.

In the comments below the video, there are also some really helpful tips, including one about using spray mist before the shoot itself to remove creases from any drops, muslins, or sheets you might use for backgrounds.

What about you? Do you have any other ways of removing wrinkles from your backgrounds? Or tips to share about removing creases before a shoot gets underway? I’d love to see them in the comments below.

Iain Stanley's picture

Iain Stanley is an Associate Professor teaching photography and composition in Japan. Fstoppers is where he writes about photography, but he's also a 5x Top Writer on Medium, where he writes about his expat (mis)adventures in Japan and other things not related to photography. To view his writing, click the link above.

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5 Comments

Thanks for the tip!

No problem, hope it helps

If he shot on gray, why not just sub the background out with a new background layer on soft light layer style?

Eliminates 99% of this complicated Ps dance.

Yes you could do that if the background was grey, but I think the more salient point is how to straighten creases and wrinkles on *any* colored background. But thanks for the useful tip. Time saving is always a bonus.

I just paint with a brush from a sampled background color. Add noise. Done.