If you plan to sell your crafts online then you have to be able to compete and stand out in the crowd of other people selling their items. The easiest way to do that is to present your items in a professional way. What better way to do that than to have great looking photos. Light boxes can be very expensive especially when you start adding the light setup with it. For less than $20 and an iPhone you could have yourself a custom size light box. You can make them as simple or as complex as you want but the following design took me less than 20 minutes to make.
Things you will need:
2 Quick Clamp lights with 5000k 100 watt bulbs
Old white t-shirt or white muslin cloth
Box cutter or knife or scissors
Clean Packing tape
1 sheet of white poster board
1 Sharpie
1 cardboard box big enough to fit you item with a little extra room.
step 1
assemble the box with the clear packing tape leaving one end open.
step 2
using the sharpie draw a line around the inside perimeter of 2 sides, as shown in the picture. Make sure you leave 1-2 inches of cardboard around the perimeter of each side to act as a border.
step 3
using your box cutter, knife, or scissors cut along the lines that you drew with the sharpie. You should have the cardboard border left. you should now have 3 opens sides, the untaped side and the two cut sides.
step 4
You want to take your white t-shirt and split it in 2 pieces, the front and the back. Or if you are using white muslin cloth cut it down to just a little bigger than your openings. using the clear packing tape you need to tape the t-shirt/cloth over the 2 openings that you cut out. you want stretch the material slightly so it doesnt sag when stood up.
step 5
you need to cut the white poster board to fit inside the box width wise. you want to orient the box so the opening is towards you and the two white cloth sides are on the sides. you should have solid cardboard on the bottom, back, and top as oriented in the picture. Then slide your white poster baord inside the box and put the inside edge all the way in the top corner and create a GRADUAL slope so the background will look endless in the pictures.
step 6
you want to clamp the lights about 12-18 inches from the sides and you want the lights angles slightly downward (it will still work if you cannot get the angle). Plug in the lights and turn them on. Let them sit for 5-10 minutes to full warm up and get to the maximum light output.
step 7
place your item inside the light box and download the camera + app by tap tap tap on your iphone. You don't have to use this app but it gives you more control than the native iphone app. it also gives your more editing controls as well. you could use a dslr if you have one.
final image
here is the final image after some lite editing in the camera + app.
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