Comments on: A Quick & Easy White Box (Light Box) for Product Photography

By: DH

DH — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 04:01:42 +0000

It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one searching the internet for how to do this! When I originally checked, “Jean L” from above just posted 5 mins. prior! I’m glad I read this article.

I took a mixture of advice from above for materials and construction and put together something that I really like. I have some daylight CFL bulbs and I went to town. I’m not really a photographer, but after messing around with the white balance settings (and others), I got nearly the exact effect I was going for! The only thing I need to adjust is a light source from above like in the pictures shown above.

Thanks Jason, a great idea that works really well for the at home blogger!

By: Jean L

Jean L — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 22:51:12 +0000

Some of my shots turned out great, a little dark or bluish but easily fixed with my computer software. Some are terribly blue, green, or orange and cannot be fixed in my photo program, even if they looked fine in the camera viewfinder. Color is really important in what I’m doing. My next step is to figure out how to set the white balance on the camera, and look for a gray card. Grateful for the help on this thread! Thanks, all!!!

By: Jean L

Jean L — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 02:26:18 +0000

I didn’t like the prices on the CFL bulbs, so I got 100 watt Reveal bulbs. I made my box bigger because my products are bigger and I might want to photograph sets instead of single items.

Foamboard: I got my foam board pieces at JoAnn Fabrics. They cut them for me, and I paid 1/3 of what I would have spent for smaller pieces at the office store.

Light Bulbs: I got mine at Walmart for 1/4 the price I would have paid at the office store.

White Duct Tape: I got it at Walmart and paid 1/2 what I would have spent at the office store.

Nothing against the office store, they have the best prices on some items, just not these.

I’ll post again after I’ve finished taking some pictures and report on the bulbs I used.

Thanks so much for this article!

By: Jean L

Jean L — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 20:45:36 +0000

2′ x 3′ sheets of white foamboard – 5 (or larger, if desired, for bigger light box)
white or regular masking tape
bright white paper
articulating lamps – 3
light bulbs — “daylight” CFL (compact florescent) bulbs that have a color temperature of about 5000 or 5500, equivalent to 150 watt incandescent bulbs
box cutter

By: K Manny

K Manny — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 00:59:11 +0000

This is great but I’d have to use diffusers as well because of those hard shadows.
But this is a great for such a simple set up.

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By: Therese Donnelly

Therese Donnelly — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:02:02 +0000

Hey Jason,

thank you for this tutoriel, even if it is a couple of years ago. i only stumbled across it now.
I have one question though. here in the UK the IKEA lamps you are talking about can only take 75w. I was told by an electrician that I cannot put the kind of bulbs you mention into them as (what I have found) they would be 50w with an equivalent of 200w. Can you give me more details on the bulbs please.

Thank you.

By: jeleoz

jeleoz — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 21:20:49 +0000

Just made a version of this….a bit smaller but I think it’s going to work out great!!! Thanks so much for this!!

By: thinsmek

thinsmek — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 06:43:26 +0000

Matt, yes, use the flash too, the more light the better. Direct the flash upwards to the ceiling of the box so that it can bounce.

By: Albert

Albert — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 10:30:58 +0000

Most excellent. I’m thinking of lazy suzan for rotating objects to photograph different sides. Job well done.

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 03 Sep 2011 23:58:45 +0000

Quick question. Do you still use the flash on your camera when taking images in the light-box?

By: Jeff

Jeff — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 15:40:43 +0000

Juli..

The problem lies with your camera’s exposure program.

I’m not a photography expert, but I do have some experience with this issue, so bear with me..

Camera’s automatic exposure programs generally try to balance the lighting. When shooting something like this, with a lot of bright white, the camera decreases the exposure to get to a “middle” exposure. Hence the gray.

Search for “gray card” on the web. If you put a gray card in front of your subject, then lock exposure (usually hold the shutter release button halfway), then remove the gray card, and shoot, you’ll get much better results.

If your subjects are all similar in size and color, you may want to set your shutter speed, aperture, and ISO manually to avoid having to force/lock the exposure for every single shot.

You may also try manually overriding the exposure on your camera. Mine have settings for increasing/decreasing the automatic exposure in increments of .5.

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Updating the Print Portfolio… Photography | Alyssa Strand Portfolio — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 15:30:44 +0000

[...] to build a light box and buy a tripod for my camera! After some focused Google-ing, I came across a tutorial written by Jason Tomczak showing how to create your own light box with white foamcore. A material I [...]

By: Mika

Mika — Fri, 27 May 2011 18:03:51 +0000

Nice!
Just wondering, when you use the plexiglass for the reflection on the bottom, do you get a line in the back between the glass and the paper? Is there a way to avoid that? Thanks!

By: Juli

Juli — Tue, 24 May 2011 18:25:49 +0000

Oh and for some images, I just COULD NOT get the white background even with PS. ugh.

By: Juli

Juli — Tue, 24 May 2011 18:24:24 +0000

Hello Jason! I built a lightbox as per your instructions. But my pictures turned out really bad. I can’t get the effect I want. They either turned out TOO BLUE or TOO DARK or TOO SHADOWY or TOO DULL. SAD!!! I could only get the color I want after tweaking the photo with PS. For those pictures you posted here, did you use a PS to do post-editing? Or are your pictures perfect right out of the oven?

I thought by having all that setup I could reduce the amount of time taken with PS. Apparently not! It’s so hard to get the right white background shade! UGH!

cld u please take a look?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v112/forgetmynamejuli/Testing11_original.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v112/forgetmynamejuli/Testing11_post_editing.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v112/forgetmynamejuli/Testing21_original.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v112/forgetmynamejuli/Testing2_post_editing.jpg

See, I could only get that white background with PS editing.

I need your help! Please reply. Thank you!!

By: Kathleen

Kathleen — Sat, 14 May 2011 21:46:45 +0000

Excellent! Thank you very much for this information.

By: arun

arun — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 13:32:00 +0000

Thank you so much.I was looking for a light box solution for my products photo and found this blog. It’s really helpful information. Thank you so much

By: Keir

Keir — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 15:03:23 +0000

The closest I can find bulb-wise is 26w compact flourescent with a color temp of 4000k, would this provide decent results or is the temp too low?

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