Hey everyone,

Whenever I take quick progress photos of a build on the bench or snap finished shots of a 1/32 or 1/24 kit, getting clean photographs with a phone is always trickier than expected. Overhead hobby desk lamps tend to create intense glare spots on clear canopies, windshields, and glossy decals, while leaving deep shadows in cockpits, wheel wells, and engine compartments.

On top of that, busy cutting mats, glue bottles, sanding sticks, and paint jars in the background constantly distract from the model's paintwork and panel line details. Traditional mobile editing sliders usually blow out highlights or mess up fine color tones when trying to lift shadows.

Recently I've been experimenting with browser-based AI photo editors to quickly balance out harsh desk lamp glare, lift shadow detail in cockpits, and clean up background workbench clutter using simple text prompts (like "remove cutting mat clutter from background and soften harsh glare on canopy"). It has made sharing clean progress shots on forums much easier without setting up a full lightbox or doing tedious manual masking.

(Disclosure: I'm affiliated with AI Photo Editor at https://imgphotoeditor.ai/, which is one browser tool I've used for cleaning up bench photos alongside mobile camera adjustments.)

Curious how other modelers here handle photographing completed builds and in-progress work? Do you use a portable photo booth/diffuser, or do you have a preferred post-processing workflow for forum sharing?

Edited September 29Sep 29 by ethanjamescolez

I have my own solution for this... I can't be bothered...I take photos, and if there are items in the picture, it doesn't matter.🙂

19 hours ago, FullArmor said:

I have my own solution for this... I can't be bothered...I take photos, and if there are items in the picture, it doesn't matter.🙂

Same here....my photos can never be considered art😉

14 hours ago, Belugawhaleman said:

Same here....my photos can never be considered art😉

mine neither😆