How to get a sharp lithophane from this generator
The defaults (100 mm wide, 0.8 mm thinnest, 3 mm thickest, 0.30 mm/px detail) print well on almost any FDM printer. When you want to change them, these notes explain what each setting does to the finished print.
Choosing a shape
- Flat: the easiest to print and the best first test. Stand it in a frame or on a windowsill.
- Curved: a flat panel bent through the Curve angle. Around 120° stands on its own and hides the edges of the light source. Above 180° it starts to wrap like a lamp shade.
- Lamp: a full cylinder. Keep the base ring on so the lamp sits steadily over a tea light or LED puck, and raise Ring height if your light needs more clearance.
- Heart and Round: the photo is cut to the shape with a solid frame, good for gifts. Keep the face near the middle of the photo, as the edges are trimmed.
Thickness and detail
Thinnest (bright) sets how much light gets through the brightest parts of the photo. Under 0.6 mm can print with gaps; 0.8 mm is safe. Thickest (dark) sets how dark the shadows look: 3 mm gives strong contrast with a normal LED, while a very bright light may need 3.5 to 4 mm. The gap between the two is your contrast range, so widening it makes a punchier picture but a slower print.
Detail is how many millimetres each photo pixel covers. 0.30 mm/px matches a 0.4 mm nozzle well. Going down to 0.2 mm/px adds little you can see but makes a much bigger STL; 0.4 to 0.5 mm/px is fine for large prints viewed from across a room. Watch the triangle count and STL size under the preview as you change it.
The Frame adds a solid border that stiffens the panel and gives the printer a clean edge to start on. Set Frame width to 0 if you plan to mount the print in a picture frame.
Fixing the photo before you download
- Flat, grey result: raise Contrast and lower Gamma slightly so the mid-tones spread out.
- Face looks too dark: increase Brightness, or Gamma above 1.0, to open up the shadows.
- Grainy skin or sky: increase Smoothing to 2 to soften noise from phone cameras.
- Text or a logo reads backwards: tick Mirror. Check it in the Backlit preview from the side you will look at.
- Wrong part of the photo: use Zoom into photo to crop tighter on the subject.
Switch the preview to Backlit before downloading. It is a rough simulation of light passing through the plastic, so if a face is lost in shadow there, it will be lost in the print too.
Printing tips that matter most
Leave Export standing upright on: printing on its edge puts the fine detail in the X and Y axes, where the printer is most precise, instead of in stepped layers. Use white PLA, 100% infill and a brim, and print the outer walls slowly. The PLA weight estimate under the preview helps you check that you have enough filament left on the spool before you start. For lamp builds, only use LED lights: PLA softens at around 60 °C.