A large percentage of the half-tone reproductions from photographs, for illustrating Experiment Station Bulletins, are greatly reduced in value because of a lack of detail caused by heavy shadows, resulting from the use of opaque backgrounds near the objects photographed. To overcome this difficulty and to make such pictures of more value to specialists working in the fields of entomology, botany, and horticulture, a device, which is the outcome of combining several well-known principles, is here represented.