Another photography thread

So I'm not really a photographer. Frankly, even with a camera phone, I don't really know what I'm doing.

I can adjust things in manual mode though, which helps, sort of, but post processing skills are limited to opening irfanview and hitting "autocorrect colors".

Now I find myself in need of taking good quality photographs of things that glow in the dark and/or under blacklight. 

 example, under blacklight.

I'm going to have to take E36 M3loads of pictures, that I already understand.

But instead of wasting days doing trial and error, maybe someone could punt me at some settings or something to make my life a little easier.

I have a tripod, my pixel 4a, a pop-up light booth with white black and green backgrounds and 2 mounted leds, and a UV flashlight. 

I do NOT have a fully dark room to work in. 

So... Tips? Settings suggestions? Focal point/iso/white balance ideas for showing off glowy stuff in the dark?

Experiment.  One of the good things about digital photography is the zero investment you make in order to capture an image. 

What specifically are you trying to show?  That may help us guide you

One thing that has really helped on my iPhone is using a photo app for taking pictures. While the built-in camera app is great and expanding all the time, there are apps that allow for long-exposure shots and other tricks that give you more control. You could play with settings and see what you get.  

Another trick is the use of filters. You can request a sample set from a manufacturer or photo store. They usually go over lights, but in your case, you could use the small sample sheets and use them over the camera lens to dull out the colors you don't want and make the colors you do want to pop. I can't give you any advice other than experiment and see if it helps, its free after all.

Finally, Google glow-in-the-dark photography to get some tips and tricks.

As for post-production, I am a long-time casual Photoshop user and they make a good free App for phones called Photoshop Express or PS Express.

Product photos for web store. 

There's regular vs blacklight, but,  and I'm attributing this to that table top, I get a lot of bright spots that mess with everything else.

Anyway, as product photos, I need to show true color, and whatever glow in the dark or uv reactive colors come through. I need to properly represent the p product, and there can be an awful lot going on sometimes.

I'm trying to find a better black light solution than flashlight, but the bulbs and fluorescent tube style ones seem to have disappeared. 

One thing I would do for a website shot. Get a white sheet and put on a table and put something under the back to drape over it. Use that for your backdrop and shoot some shots and see what it looks like. One other thing I can suggest is this free edit program. It's free and easy to use. I have been using it for a year and if you need help Rico, grab me one night on the box and I can chat about photography. I have been using this program for year and love it because it is easy to use and good for a basic edit which it seems you need.

https://picasa.en.softonic.com/

If you have a flashlight UV light, how long an exposure can you force the phone out to?  In a regular SLR camera, your situation seems ideal for what they call "light painting."  You have an extremely long exposure time (15-30 seconds plus) and set the rest of the settings so the subject would be underexposed to virtually black. Fixed focus, ISO 50, exposure comp slid all the way down, etc.  Then move the light around your subject item closely, taking care to keep moving and not point the light at the camera.  A few attempts of this will let you know if it will work for you or not.  

If I was doing this with my DSLR I would definitely make sure I had the white balance set to a value like 5000k and not Auto.  I think that would be key here; don't let the camera/phone pick whatever white balance it thinks is correct as things are way off with what you're doing vs. 99% of all other photos taken. 

The rest is probably going to be a learning experience involving a lot of trial and error. 

If accurate colors are important, then you really need to use a white balance card to set WB. You also need to shoot in raw, which makes dealing with WB a trivial matter in post. Luckily you can shoot in raw with your Pixel. As long as you have a WB card and shoot raw, it doesn't matter what WB setting you use in-camera (I always just leave mine in auto). If IrfanView can't set WB in raw, then you'd need to do a custom WB in-camera - I don't know if Pixel can do this. 

You can get a WB card from any camera store. If you want to go grassroots, get some white PFTE pipe thread tape and wrap it around an old credit card a bunch of times, so no color from the card shows through. PFTE is spectrally pure, colorless. Gray is a bit easier to use (it's hard to over expose it, and you can't sample WB on a white object that you over exposed) but I don't know of a $0 pure gray item. white paper isn't pure white. 

Balancing settings is important, but so is setting up the shot. With blacklight, if you have a white background, you are going to wash out the subject, because your background will glow as well. Go with a black or dark grey velvet backdrop, so the colors you are trying to capture are not influenced by the glow of something else. 
 

Also, since you are using a flashlight, some scotch tape or thin white paper (like tissue paper) over the lens will diffuse the light and help prevent "hotspots" like the one on your Octo-berkleyer's arm.