Turn any photo into a 3D-printable lithophane. Pick a flat panel, a curved frame, a cylinder lamp, a heart or a round ornament, check the backlit preview, and download a print-ready STL.
I built this next to the shadow lamp tool because people kept asking me for both. Everything runs in one page.
Drop a JPG, PNG or WEBP photo. It's turned into a thickness map right in your browser.
See the glow before you print: thin areas shine bright, thick areas stay dark.
Flat panel, curved, cylinder lamp, heart and round. The lamp has an optional base ring.
Size, minimum and maximum thickness, frame, detail, brightness, contrast, gamma, negative and mirror.
A closed solid that slices cleanly in Bambu Studio, PrusaSlicer, OrcaSlicer and Cura.
The tool shows the PLA weight, the triangle count and the file size as you change settings.
A lithophane is a plate whose thickness follows the picture. With a light behind it, thin plastic glows and thick plastic stays dark, so the photo appears.
Drop a photo into the tool, or try the sample. Nothing is uploaded to a server.
Choose a shape and size, then nudge brightness and contrast until the backlit preview looks right.
Save the STL and print it standing up in white PLA. Put an LED behind it and the photo appears.
Every shape uses the same photo. Pick the one that fits where the light will be.
The classic. Stand it in front of a window, an LED panel or a small light box. Easiest to print.
Stands on its own and looks great on a desk with a tea light behind it. Set the curve from 30° to 240°.
The photo wraps all the way around. The base ring sits over an LED tea light or puck light.
A gift favourite for couples and anniversaries. The frame follows the heart outline.
Good for window ornaments and pet portraits. Add a hole in your slicer or glue on a hanger.
The two numbers that matter most are the thinnest and the thickest part of the picture. I start every print at 0.8 mm for the brightest areas and 3 mm for the darkest. That gives you a good range of greys with a normal warm LED behind it.
If your light is strong, like a bright LED panel or a window, you can go down to 0.6 mm for brighter highlights. Don't go thinner than that: below about two layers the plastic gets fragile and small holes appear. If your photo looks washed out, raise the thickest part to 3.5 mm for deeper shadows. Above 4 mm, very little light gets through PLA.
The frame should be thicker than the picture, around 3.5 mm, so a flat panel doesn't warp or snap. For a cylinder lamp, the base ring adds the stiffness. Detail is set in millimetres per pixel: 0.3 mm suits a 0.4 mm nozzle well. Going finer than 0.2 mm makes the file bigger without adding detail you can see.
These work on Bambu Lab, Prusa and Creality printers with a 0.4 mm nozzle.
| Filament | White PLA. Natural, silk and coloured filaments hide detail or tint the light. |
|---|---|
| Layer height | 0.1 to 0.12 mm. The fine 0.12 mm profile is a good default. |
| Infill | 100%. Any infill pattern shows up as a grid when the light is on. |
| Orientation | Standing upright, so the thickness changes are made by the nozzle path, not by layers. The tool exports flat panels standing up by default. |
| Brim | 5 to 8 mm on flat panels, so the tall thin print doesn't wobble. |
| Speed | Outer walls around 50 mm/s. Slower walls give smoother greys. |
| Supports | None needed. |
Bambu Lab lithophane tips. In Bambu Studio, import the STL, keep it standing, choose the 0.12 mm fine profile and set sparse infill to 100%. Add a brim from the Others tab. Bambu Basic PLA in Jade White prints clean lithophanes, and the same settings work in OrcaSlicer. If you share your print on MakerWorld, upload the STL from this tool and add your photo of it lit up.
Prusa and Creality. In PrusaSlicer use the 0.10 mm DETAIL profile with 100% infill. In Cura, set infill to 100% and wall line count to 3 or more. If you see stripes on a Creality printer, slow the print down and check the belts first.
Lithophanes love light and shade. A face lit from one side, a pet against a plain wall, or a landscape with a bright sky all print well. Very dark photos turn into a thick, dim plate, and busy photos with lots of tiny details turn to mush at 0.3 mm per pixel.
Crop close. On a 100 mm panel, a face should fill most of the frame. If the preview looks flat, raise the contrast a little. If faces look too dark, lower the gamma. Turn on Mirror if text or a well-known landmark reads backwards from the side you'll look at.
A lithophane is a different thing from a shadow lamp. A lithophane glows through the plastic to show a full photo with all its greys. A shadow lamp blocks light with cut walls and throws a big silhouette on the wall, so it needs a bold outline, not a photo. I compared the two in shadow lamp vs lithophane.
Use LEDs only: a warm white LED strip, an LED tea light, a USB LED puck or even your phone torch for a quick test. Warm white (around 2700 to 3000 K) gives the classic amber glow. Cool white looks more like a black and white photo.
Never put a real candle or a hot incandescent or halogen bulb inside a printed lithophane. PLA starts to soften at about 60 °C, and a candle flame can melt or even ignite it. For a lithophane lamp, the base ring is sized to sit over a battery LED tea light.
Open the tool, drop in a photo and watch it glow in the preview.
Make a lithophaneA lithophane is a thin plate whose thickness changes with the picture. With a light behind it, thin parts glow bright and thick parts stay dark, so the photo appears. Without light it looks like a plain white relief.
Yes. Making, previewing and downloading the STL is free, with no sign-up and no watermark. Your photo is processed in your browser and is never uploaded.
Start with 0.8 mm for the thinnest part and 3 mm for the thickest. Go down to 0.6 mm for a brighter print with a strong light, or up to 3.5 mm for more contrast. Keep the frame thicker than the picture so the print stays stiff.
Use white PLA, 0.1 to 0.12 mm layers and 100 percent infill, and print the lithophane standing upright with a brim. Slow the outer walls to about 50 mm/s. These settings work on Bambu Lab, Prusa and Creality printers.
Import the STL into Bambu Studio, keep it standing, choose the 0.12 mm fine profile, set sparse infill to 100 percent, and add a 5 to 8 mm brim. Bambu Basic PLA in Jade White prints clean lithophanes.
Yes. Pick the Lamp shape to wrap the photo into a cylinder. Turn on the base ring so the lamp sits over an LED tea light or LED puck light.
Use a warm white LED, an LED strip, an LED tea light or a phone torch. Never use a real candle or a hot incandescent bulb, because PLA softens at about 60 degrees Celsius.
A lithophane shows a full photo with all its shades by glowing through the plastic. A shadow lamp blocks light with cut panels and throws a large silhouette on the wall, so it needs a bold outline instead of a photo.
Sharp photos with clear light and shade, like a face lit from one side, a pet against a plain background or a landscape with sky. Avoid very dark, blurry or busy photos.
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