DIY Photo Light Box - a finish fifty project

I first learned how to make a light box from Alessandra Cave, a beautiful photographer, from whom I took a great class at the Makerie, a lovely retreat in Boulder, CO. I built the first light box for my jewelry tutorials, 24 Days of Glam. Taking photos using the box seriously elevated the level of and look of this this blog as a whole.

My old light box had died a slow death in Boulder and was not worth moving. Making a new one landed on my Finish Fifty list the minute we walked in the door of our new house. I kept putting off building it, though. I tried to take photos every which way in an attempt to get good shots without it–a frustrating proposition.

The box is inexpensive to make. It’s simply a cardboard box, white paperboard and some tissue paper. My excuses piled up–I don’t have the right size box (um, hello, I just moved) or I couldn’t find the tissue paper, (again, with the move). But truly, the light box is so simple and fast to make and the impact on photo quality is SO enormous, I have no idea why I waited. So, here is project 3 from my Finish Fifty list along with a full tutorial. You can see complete Finish Fifty projects here.

Have fun with this!

DIY Photo Light Box Tutorial:

Materials:
Cardboard box
Tissue paper
Craft knife
Packing tape
White posterboard (should be at least 30% longer than the box length)

Cut off the tops of the box.

Pop out the side

It should look like this after you cover all three sides.

Cut white poster board the width of the box.

Place the poster board in the box such that it curves inside the box.

Cropped with a little brightening and voila!

Here is another side-by-side to compare. Before: