Getting the most out of your Homemade lightbox

Jan 4, 2007 at 12:25 AM

This entry was published from Low End Theory. You can comment here or on the original post..

Some of you may remember the homemade lightbox tutorial I've posted about a few times that Jyoseph put together.

These are just a few tips to help you get some excellant results like I did.

Shoot in RAW if your camera has the option.
I always shoot in RAW format.
Why you ask? Because you get so many more options for color when you do. Even if you use the wrong white balance setting on your camera, it can be corrected in the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in.

Speaking of White Balance (WB), make sure you use that tool in the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in. Just click anywhere on the photo that is white (For example...the white background of the lightbox). This will tell the Adobe Camera Raw plug-in what is white, so it can automatically set the color temperature.

Don't use flash... unless you have a speedlight and know how to use it properly.

Don't use a large aperture. If your DOF is too shallow, the photo won't be as crisp and the edge of the subject will blur into the white. After all, the whole point of this is to seperate the subject, from the white background.

After everything is done bump up the brightness a little bit until the background of the image is totally white and open the photo into Photoshop so you can save it.