A photo with a clear subject
One face, a pet, or a simple scene works better than a crowded group. The photo guide covers cropping, contrast, and the formats the uploader accepts.
Beginner guide
How to make a lithophane
A lithophane is a thin print that looks pale in ordinary light and shows a picture when you light it from behind. This walkthrough covers the photograph, the model Lumiphane builds, and the separate job of printing it.
The button opens the generator. You do not create a Lumiphane account.
Why thickness becomes a picture
Nineteenth-century lithophanes were porcelain plaques. Thin porcelain passed more light. Thicker porcelain held it back. A lamp behind the plaque turned that relief into a grayscale scene. A 3D printer does the same thing with plastic: the generator reads how bright each part of a photo is and varies the wall.
Bright areas become the thin wall. Dark areas become the thick wall. The change is not a straight ramp. Light through a translucent plastic falls off quickly as the wall gets thicker, which is why a modest thickness range can still show a full range of tones. Lumiphane maps that curve for white PLA, and the on-screen preview uses the same idea so you can judge the picture before a long print.
The preview is a simulation of that transmission. It is not a photograph of your printer, your filament batch, or your LED.
Thin passes light, thick blocks it
Generating a model and printing it are different jobs
Lumiphane runs in the browser. You pick a shape, add JPEG, PNG, or WebP photos, crop and place them, adjust brightness and contrast, and download a model. The mesh is built on your device.
The file does not start a printer. You open it in a slicer, choose plastic, layer height, and speed, and the slicer sends the job to the machine. The 3D printed lithophane guide stays on that second half. The settings guide separates the controls in Lumiphane from the controls in the slicer.
What you need
A shape that matches the light
A flat panel sits in a window or a lightbox. A curved panel stands in front of a light. A cylinder, cube, or hexagon is an open shade. Lamp sizes and limits are on the lamp page.
White filament and a cool light
The thickness curve is tuned for white PLA. Silk, gray, and dark plastics scramble the tones. Light the finished print with an LED. A hot bulb can soften PLA.
A slicer you already use
Export an STL or a standard 3MF for any slicer, or a Bambu Studio project for the single-nozzle Bambu Lab machines listed in the export sheet.
Make one from start to finish
Stay in this order. A beautiful model of a poor photo still prints as a poor lithophane.
Choose the shape first
Flat and curved panels hold up to 4 photos. A cube or cylinder holds up to 4 around the outside. A hexagon holds up to 6. One photo on a flat or curved panel sets the height from the picture. A lamp shape, or several photos on one panel, crops each picture to its tile.
Add the photos
Drop JPEG, PNG, or WebP files. You can add more than one at a time, up to the limit for that shape. Crop in the tool, and slide a photo inside its frame if the subject sits too high or too low.
Read the preview, then nudge the tone
Contrast spreads the thin and thick regions. Brightness lifts or darkens the whole picture. Invert swaps them, which is useful when a light subject has disappeared into the bright end. The ranges and what they do are in lithophane settings.
Export the file
Wait until the preview finishes. The export sheet can build a Bambu Studio project, a standard 3MF, or an STL. It also lists size, the thickness range for this part, and any warning. Read the warning before a multi-hour print.
Slice it standing up
Keep the model upright. Use white PLA, a solid image area, and a fine layer height. Lumiphane’s print guide starts at 0.12 mm layers, 100% infill, a slow speed, and a brim. Those are starting points for a typical 0.4 mm nozzle, not a setting Lumiphane can push to your printer.
Light it from behind
Hold a flat panel to a window or an even LED panel. Set an open shade over a cool LED with a gap so the light does not touch the plastic. In reflected room light the picture should look faint. That is the material working as designed.
Mistakes that waste a print
Printing the sheet flat on the bed
Layer lines then cut across the face, and the nozzle’s width becomes the detail limit. Standing the part up lets the finer vertical steps draw the tones. Lumiphane builds the model in that standing orientation. Leave it that way in the slicer.
Leaving holes inside the wall
A honeycomb or grid inside the picture shows up as a pattern when you turn the light on. The picture area needs to be solid plastic. The print guide uses 100% infill. Some people instead use enough walls that the picture is solid and keep infill only in a thick frame. Either way, the lit area cannot have air gaps.
Choosing a photo the nozzle cannot resolve
Fine text, hair against a busy background, and ten faces in one frame turn into mush at a 0.4 mm nozzle. Crop tighter. If the preview already looks muddy, the print will too.
Judging it on the desk, unlit
An unlit lithophane is a white texture. Put the light behind it before you decide the contrast is wrong.
Questions
Do I need CAD software?
No. Lumiphane turns the photo into a mesh. You still need a slicer to prepare the file for your printer.
Will the picture be in color?
The print is one material. Color in the photo is converted to brightness, then to thickness. You see grayscale tones when light comes through.
Can I print it in silk or wood filament?
You can load the STL into a slicer with those materials. The thickness map and the preview assume white PLA. Sparkle, silk, and dark pigments change how light scatters, so the picture will not match the preview.
Does Lumiphane include the lamp?
It builds an open panel or an open shade, plus an optional footing so the part stays on the printer bed. You supply the LED. There is no bulb socket in the model.
Where should I go next?
Use the photo guide if the picture is the weak part, the lamp guide if you want a shade, the printing guide before you slice, and the settings guide when a test print is almost right.