Lightbox Tutorial

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Winter is the perfect time to take pictures inside. So, let’s make a light box. Above are some of the supplies you’ll need to make the frame. PVC pipe and connectors, PVC Cement, something to cut the pipe with, Plexiglas. You’ll also need fabric to wrap around it, to create your backdrop and lights.

I won’t go into lengths, as you will want to decide what size you want your box to be. We made ours 2’x4’ and at least 2’ tall. You can tell by the pictures we did this in the fall so I really don’t remember our exact dimensions.

A pipe cutter is so easy to use! I totally recommend figuring one into your project.

We cut some PVC pipe in short pieces to use on the ends. Then used some cement (glue) on it, as well as. . .

putting glue inside the connector.

Then we pushed them together tightly. The cement dries pretty quickly.

We then put cement on the exposed end of pipe. . .

. . .and a corner connector.

Then squished them tightly together.

And twisted them into proper alignment quickly, before the glue set.

This is how it should look when you’re done. Then you just repeat the above steps on the other end of the corner connector.

And you should have this. You will need eight of these, or four, depending on how you want to do things.

Cute the pipe in the length you want for the height of your lightbox and glue into the T connectors.

Now we have four corners started.

We used cross connectors in place of the T connectors for the other end because we are putting legs on ours, You can do this to keep it elevated slightly or just use the T connectors again to keep in flat.

Here’s one completed corner.

After you cut four pipes to your width, and four to length and glue them all together then it will look like this.

Now it’s time to cut the Plexiglas. We placed the frame on the Plexiglas and marked the corners so we could notch them out.

All of the upright pipes will need to be marked for cutting out.

Since we think it would be easier to cut the openings square instead of rounded Dennis used a square to reshape the cut lines.

Now we’re ready to cut.

You can use a dremel to make your cuts.

This particular tool is used for cutting sheetrock/drywall around electrical boxes.

Or you can use a jigsaw.

The Plexiglas we chose is too thick to cut with a box knife.

I venture to say, this is the hardest part of the whole project.

Then pop the Plexiglas into the bottom of your frame. Now it’s probably safe to remove the blue protective film. You can slide different fabrics under for different items you may want to photograph. The color will show through the Plexiglas.

You need a light weight white fabric (I love white flag fabric) to encase it in so your lights can shine through it. I haven’t gotten around to sewing ours yet so I can’t show you those steps. We just have our fabric draped around it and the clamps from the lights are holding it on. It works, so I haven’t made time to finish it up.

Because of the open connectors on the bottom you can cut pipe lengths to make legs for the light box and just use T and corner connectors (like on the top) to give your legs feet.

Clear as mud?

Added:  Someone asked about seeing photos in it, you've already seen many but I know that all the photos in this post were taken inside the light box.