The Light Box -How To Take Awesome Product Photos

 Recently I noticed a glaring difference in my auction photos and that of other successful EBay Sellers that I am modeling after.There photos were way better than mine.They showcased their merchandise with a professional looking picture.Not like mine, spread out on the bed or kitchen table. Nothing but contrasting color in the background so that they eye is drawn to the most important part of the picture. The item they want you to buy! Not how messy that persons house is, or the cat or dog in the background, or the glare of the camera flash. After i did a little digging I figured out their trick. They were using a light tent!

    Whats a light tent? Well I'm not sure, but it sure takes much better product photos than what I was taking before and can be made from a cardboard box, some tracing paper, poster board and tape.Here is mine.

As you can see its very High-Tech! Seriously this thing is so easy to make I could have gotten my school 1st grade son to do it. I think the purpose of the light box is to soften the light and illuminate the object from all sides.In the photo you can see that  I cut out two sides and the top a little smaller than the size of the tracing paper and then taped the sheet of tracing paper over the hole. The next step is to cut some project poster board to fit the box and then lay it in with a soft slope. Do not crease it or it will show in your photos.

Lastly , you ll need a bright light to illuminate the interior of the box. After much research I found the most popular way of doing this , is with a halogen work light.I bought mine for $15 bucks down at Ace Hardware on clearance.

As you can see, it provides plenty of light but these things get EXTREMELY HOT really fast so take care not to burn yourself. When you are ready to take photos of your eBay items just point the light at the tracing paper and view the results inside the box.You can adjust and play with the lighting by looking at the results through your camera. If your not a do-it -yourself er , you can opt to buy a Light tent package that includes the tent and several halogen lights so you can light from all sides and above.They are sold pretty inexpensively all over eBay.

Before Light Box

 After!!