Homebrew PCBs

I use a macro setting on the camera, with flash, but one unusual trick - 
I put a piece of white paper in front of the flash, angled down to face 
the PCB.  That way, instead of getting flare from point reflections of 
the flash, I get a uniform ambient light.

For unpopulated PCBs, I usually end up using my scanner, although gEDA's 
pcb layout package has a photorealistic output exporter that is a lot 
easier to use.