How to Make a Home Photo Light Studio

Locate your photo studio someplace dark. This may seem counterintuitive, but the goal of a photo studio is not to be well lit, but to have full control. Having your photo study in a room with windows can make your photos bland with uniform daylight and take away the full range of options you might otherwise have.

Set up your shooting platform. Use heavy-duty binder clips to affix one end of your paper roll to the edge of a table or the back of a chair. Do not use the tabletop. Instead, run your roll of paper smoothly down to the ground, creating a concave surface. This is where you'll place the object to be photographed. Any color paper will do, but white provides the most neutral backdrop for your subject. If the paper gets crumpled or dirty, replace it. Having a roll of paper is handy because it will both weigh down the end of the sheet that runs to the ground and provide an easily refreshed backdrop. Simply rip it off and start fresh from the top.

Install your key light. This will be your primary method of illuminating the front of your object. Its strength will be the primary factor in determining whether your photographs look muddy or professionally bright and color-balanced. Use your strongest light and set it pointing directly at your concave shooting platform. A lamp with an adjustable head is perfectly acceptable if you don't have a professional light stand.

Hook up the fill light. This light should be placed to one side of the key light and at the level of the object to be photographed. Since your miniature studio is on the ground, a desk lamp will do fine. This light will eliminate any dark pools of shadow left untouched by the key light.

Plug in your back light at an angle behind the object to be photographed. This light's job is to create a halo effect around your subject, helping to separate it from the background. The back light will give your photographs a sense of depth.

Adjust your lighting depending on your intended style. The three lights collectively form your three-point lighting setup and can be easily adjusted for various effects. This is also where having diffusion sheets and duct tape can prove handy. Diffusion sheets come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but are typically large, gauze-like sheets designed to be placed between a light and its subject. Diffusion sheets come in a variety of strengths and are most often used to soften the light applied to your subject. While specialized stands are often used to hold diffusion sheets in professional photo studios, often using duct tape to affix the sheet to the front of your light can provide the desired effect.