Yes ladies and gentlemen, I decided to build my own lightbox to improve the photography of my etsy products.
RAW PHOTOGRAPHY BEFORE LIGHTBOX
RAW PHOTOGRAPHY WITH LIGHTBOX
As you can see, the lightbox allowed me to take much brighter and clearer photos. The new photos are much easier to edit and end up much clearer :-) And I achieved a new level of crafty satisfaction after completing it.
I started a thread on Etsy.com i hopes that someone might be able to refer me to a good already made model. Unfortunately, most of the affordable ones had mixed reviews and I did not want to spend the money on something that might fail me. Plus they are not readily available in stores, (cant test them out before buying) so I would likely have to order one and hope that its not useless when it arrives.
Then someone suggested that I make my own. I was really opposed to the idea at first, but eventually I realized it was the only way to make sure I got something that worked without spending lots of money.
Plus I already had some of the materials I needed, including the lights. So I followed THIS TUTORIAL and had good results.
The only word of caution I have to others who want to build their own is this, IT COST ABOUT AS MUCH TO BUILD MY OWN as it did to buy one of the cheaper models on ebay. And I already had some of the materials needed. However, I did buy some of the materials in duplicate because I am a terrible cutter and I wanted to have extra materials on hand.
Does that mean you shouldn't make your own? Not necessarily, I did get the result I wanted and can now make larger light boxes if I need to. It all depends on what works for you. If your patient and bargain hunt, I am sure you can get the materials needed cheaper then I did.
But if you hate building things like this then you wont spend much more if you just buy a cheap ready made version.
Hope you enjoyed this little adventure :-)
-h
