One of my biggest obstacles up to this point has been the photography aspect of my Etsy shop. I have had quite a few items finished and couldn't bring myself to spend another 4 hours to set up and take some fuzzy poorly lit pictures. So, last night I decided to build a light box. I was sick of having to wait for the lighting to be just right, and then it getting dark too fast and not finishing my pictures which don’t turn out all that great anyway.
So, to the point here is my light box, and how I made it.
Materials that I used:
- 3 sheets foam core board
- Tracing paper
- White Masking Tape
- Box knife
- Ruler
- Pencil
Steps:
I made my lightbox approximately 15in. square. So first I used my ruler and pencil to mark 2 squares next to each other on the first board. Then just for convienences sake I made the width of the frame the same size as the width of the ruler. The first board looked like this:
When cutting I score the top of the sheet so that I could get as straight of a line as possible before cutting all the way through. The line in the center where the two squares meet is the only line I did not cut all the way through. It was just easier when putting all the pieces together to have those two still attached together.
The next sheet looked exactly the same as the first EXCEPT that I did not cut out the center of one of the squares. This will make the back of the box, and you can choose to leave this as a solid square or cut it out if it fits your needs better. The third sheet of board I cut was just one single 15x15in square to make the bottom of the box.
Once I had all the pieces cut out I taped them together with the white masking tape. It is important to get the white tape because it won't show up as much as other tape and under the lights does not turn gummy and loose its hold.
Once I had the outside of the box taped together I taped the seams on the inside of the box to cover the cracks. I also taped the inside of the frames that I cut out just to clean up the edges.
To diffuse the light I used some tracing paper because I had some on hand. the pieces werent quite big enough for the size holes I had to cover so I just used a glue stick to glue two pieces together and taped them over the outside of the box. You could use any white transparent covering, for example a thin white fabric, I just had the paper on hand so it was a cheap and easy option.
For the lighting I used the GE daylight 60w bulbs with random lamps I had around the house, and they seemed to work just fine.
Here is another post I did about the Etsy photography lab with ProlifiqueJewelry with more photo tips.
Here are a few more photos of the finished light box. If you have any questions about the light box just let me know 🙂