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So I bought a lightbox thinking it would improve my photos, and while they do look better, the colours are not accurate. I'll post an example from the lightbox and just under my daylight lamp so you can see, they look totally different. The base went from brown to grey/black.

Is it your camera under exposing the image to compensate for the large amount of white in the background? You might need to manually set the exposure and white balance.

it looks to me like the picture with the lightbox has problems with the exposure? Try adjusting your shutter speed until you get something more true-to-life. I wanted to say it looks overexposed, because of all that bright white, but I'm having second thoughts now, because the mini is so dark. Try dropping the shutter speed first, and if that doesn't work, whack it up to something high instead.

Alternately, nothing wrong with hopping on photoshop (other digital photo-editing software is available) and tweaking the contrast, brightness, etc until the mini looks more like it does IRL.

With all things photography, the key to getting better is to just take more pictures. I'd suggest maybe an afternoon just toying with your new setup, until you feel like you're reliably getting something more satisfying.

Some of it will be the white background - you'll need to tweak the exposure time, and/or edit the levels in photoshop or similar to fix the contrast. To get that brilliant white background on the pics while also not darkening up the subject, there's usually a little post-processing required.

The colours will likely be down to your camera being set for a different type of bulb to the lightbox - if it's using LEDs, it's probably a different shade of white to your daylight lamp. Most cameras have a white balance setting with the option for you to select different light types, or have the camera assess the light and set the white balance from that.

to get really technical, for best results you a sheet of 18% grey. A quick Amazon search = https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=photo+grey+card&crid=3OKBO4W69KLFH&sprefix=photo+grey%2Caps%2C593&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_10
You place this where your mini will be & check the camera's settings. Move your mini in place & put in the settings you noted down.

while it helps, you would probably need a photo editing software, you don't have to go all pro, but a standard one that can do auto contrast, auto color, cropping would help.

It's a common issue with a simple camera (like mine, or most phones) using bright lights, a white backdrop and anything, particularly darker miniatures. White-balance is easy, but you can also adjust brightness and contrasts, or saturation to get your colours back.

Another option would be to use a non-white background, though I always appreciate the white backgrounds myself. I just accept that my photos are not always indicative of my final miniatures, but I'm the one using them.

Something I’ve found, purely amateur advice, would be to try shooting against a black backdrop. White bottom is ok, but maybe try some black (ideally matte) backdrop.

Off the top of my head, my local dollar stores sell black foam board. It’s easy to cut and shape, sturdy enough for reuse. The above is likely more professional advice, but for $1, it might save you some time dicking around with camera settings.

Black backgrounds can actually have the opposite effect, and make the model overexposed. A medium get is better to reduce the amount of post processing required, although the stark white can look 'cleaner' for pics.

Seconded for black backdrop. Works way better. If its the gsw lightbox it should come with one.


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Also if youre using a phone camera, set it up in manual. And adjust the iso settings. I also hold the camera further away, ensure its focused on the model, take the photo, then open the photo, zoom in then screenshot for a better image.

While I wouldn’t claim to have amazing pictures, certainly not “business class”, the pictures I take (and post here...) use my ceiling LED lights, a white foam board / cardboard underneath, and the background is my (turned off) TV screen.

I’d say the colours are pretty well true-to-life (bestial brown base rings, for reference) and I just use the default camera settings in my phone. I’ve never had browns come out black, for example.

As a quick-and-easy thing to try... not a lot of wasted time if it doesn’t work out. I second the taking pictures from further back, and then using a photo editing program (I think all “Windows” products come with the “Paint” program?) to crop the picture to size. I get a sharper image that way, though my unsteady hands sometimes mean I have to take 2-3 shots to get a clear one.

It's most likely LED lighting and white balance issue.

A few thoughts to help

1) When a camera exposes it reads the light that comes in through the lens and attempts to achieve an exposure where the majority of the photo is exposed to around the "18% grey" value (this varies camera to camera, however the value is often stated a bit like a term). So when you point it at a majority white scene the camera will actually underexpose - if it was all white it would aim to make it grey. The same is true of a black scene, it would aim to make it grey and thus overexpose.

Manual camera settings help a LOT in this sitaution as you can balance the exposure to suit your specific situation.

2) The photo looks like the camera is actually doing rather well, however the light from the box appears to be all on the actual box itself, whilst the model is almost being shadowed. The white doesn't look underexposed, but the model does. You might find you can resolve this by moving the model a little further back so that light from the sides of the box lights the model more; you can also use a bit of flash or a simple white sheet of paper to reflect light onto the model. Remember to try and keep all the light the same (so if you're using side lights you want one of them to light the paper rather than the indoor lightbulb or natural light). If light landing on the whole scene all comes from the same light source or same colour of light source it makes it much easier to get the right colours.

3) If your camera allows it manual white balance can let you get the white balance right in camera. Another option, if your camera allows it, is to shoot in RAW mode. The resulting photo can then have the white balance adjusted manually by yourself with the simple movement of two sliders in any decent editing software

4) GIMP is a legal free powerful photo editing and media software suit that you can use to edit RAW photographs. Most cameras also come with some branded software to process their own RAW photos and there's always the mighty Photoshop - which you can now get for a photo licence for about £10 or so a month (you also get lightroom in the deal).

Most RAW processing will have some little dropper icons and you can pick one to set the white point - so for that photo you'd pick the background. That basically tells the software that that background should be "pure white" in colour and should set the colour right. You can do the same if you put a grey-card in the scene first and use the grey dropper on the card - then simply take your regular photo of the model and use the same white balance settings on it as you did for the grey card (since the light remained the same the two photos would have the same white balance).

Using a grey or black background is a band-aid; a plaster. So is photo-editing software, and if you go into it with the mindset that you'll "fix it in post" you will spend hours and hours over the coming years fixing the wrong end of the problem, like I used to.

I seriously recommend learning how to adjust your camera's settings. You only need to fiddle with two of them to sort this out; shutter speed and ISO. I reckon it'll take you less than fifteen minutes to find settings that work for you.

It doesn't matter how much you tweak your camera settings - LED simply doesn't provide a full spectrum of light for a true color photo.

To get true colors you need photoflood bulbs or use sunlight as your primary light source.

Thanks for the tips, I fiddled with my camera phone settings and got a result much closer to reality, still not perfect it's a £99 smartphone camera so what can you expect.

Dude, try the Black background. Put a t-shirt behind it. Give it a shot at least.

You might be able to download a camera app that gives you greater control than the default one that bundles with the phone.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Dude, try the Black background. Put a t-shirt behind it. Give it a shot at least.

The lightbox came with a black background, I just don't remember where I put it, I'll need to find it.

Honestly, even a nice greyish cloth from your local fabric store remnant bin might work fairly well.

I had the same problem shooting in a lightbox with my phone. I found that it was rectified by not using the LEDs in the lightbox and using daylight instead. Suddenly, the amount of white wasn't a problem anymore.

If you want to make it right disable any colour changing settings, set your camera to neutral. Then get a 18% grey card, a white piece of paper works as well, but it's not 100% correct, because a piece of paper isn't always neutral grey. Do a custom white balance with your camera with the card in the lightbox. Turn off any other lights in your room before custom white balance. Now you can take a picture with correct colors. You may need to dial in some exposure compensation, try +1 with white background, and -1 with black background. Finally edit the image to your liking.

The Adobe Lightroom app is a free and very powerful tool. Easy to use too, just need to play around with it to know where the setting sliders are and how they will affect your image.