Near-field optical beam-induced current (NOBIC) experiments performed on commercial laser diode devices are presented. NOBIC and 'macroscopic' photocurrent data are compared and new results on edge-emitting laser devices with different waveguide architectures are analyzed. We discuss the image formation in these experiments, in particular the role of waveguiding and saturation processes. Both the ground and first excited mode of the waveguide structure are spatially resolved. The first NOBIC images of top-emitting vertical cavity lasers excited through the top Bragg-mirror are reported.