How to Make a Photo Lithophane: The Complete 2026 Guide

1. What exactly is a lithophane?

A lithophane is a thin 3D-printed panel where image brightness is mapped to material thickness. Bright pixels become thin regions of the model, letting more light through. Dark pixels become thick regions that block light. Hold it in front of a white light source and your eyes reconstruct a grayscale photograph.

That's it — no paint, no electronics, no post-processing. Just one single-color print.

2. Choosing the right photo

Photo choice is where 80% of lithophane quality is decided. Before you open any software, pick an image that matches these four rules:

• High contrast. Lithophanes are grayscale projections of light, so images with a clear subject and well-separated tones read best. Flat, evenly-lit photos tend to look muddy.
• A clean, dark background. The background of the photo becomes the thickest part of the print. A simple dark background isolates your subject and dramatically improves readability.
• Large subject in frame. Faces should fill most of the frame. If you crop too wide, the features end up tiny and the lithophane loses detail.
• Sharp focus. Any blur in the source shows up in the print. A 2–4 MP in-focus photo beats a 20 MP soft one.

3. Picking a shape

Vextrude's Lithophane Maker offers six base shapes. Each has strengths:

• Flat panel. The classic. Prints quickly, stands in a simple holder, easy to frame. Best first project.
• Curved (outer). A gently curved rectangle. Looks more sculptural than flat, reads well from a wider viewing angle.
• Sphere. Wraps the image around a ball — typically used as a lamp shell with an LED tealight inside. Feels three-dimensional from every angle.
• Dome / hemisphere. Half sphere that sits over a light. Less material than a full sphere, but still 360° when viewed from above.
• Heart. A shaped panel — great for couples, anniversaries, memorial gifts. The subject fills the center.
• Wave / curved panel. An S-curve shape that catches light from multiple angles and feels modern on a shelf.

As a rule of thumb: start flat to learn, move to curved or heart for gifts, and print a sphere or dome once you have a reliable light source (LED puck, USB tealight) to pair with it.

4. Resolution, thickness, and size

These three numbers control how much detail the print preserves and how dark the shadows get.

Physical size

A lithophane that's too small can't show faces; one that's too large wastes filament and takes forever to print. Good starting sizes:

• Portraits: 100×150 mm (roughly 4×6 in)
• Keychain / small gifts: 50×75 mm
• Lamp shells (sphere/dome): 80–100 mm diameter

Thickness range

Every lithophane has a minimum thickness (brightest pixels) and a maximum thickness (darkest pixels). Typical values:

• Minimum: 0.6–0.8 mm — thin enough to transmit light, thick enough to be structurally sound.
• Maximum: 3.0–3.5 mm — dark enough to block almost all light, without wasting filament.

If your print looks washed out, decrease the minimum thickness. If the bright areas look overexposed, increase it.

Resolution

Vextrude's maker lets you choose a resolution — effectively how many voxels the image gets sampled into. Higher resolution gives more detail but increases file size and slicing time. Medium (around 400–600 pixels on the long edge) is the sweet spot for most photos.

5. Slicer & print settings

Once you export an STL from the maker, open it in Cura, PrusaSlicer, Bambu Studio, or OrcaSlicer. Use these baseline settings:

One quirk: Bambu Studio and OrcaSlicer have a dedicated "lithophane" preset that auto-enables vertical orientation and concentric perimeters. If you use either slicer, start there.

6. Troubleshooting common problems

The image looks washed out

The bright areas are too thick. Lower the minimum thickness (try 0.6 mm) or choose a photo with darker midtones.

The image looks overexposed / featureless

The minimum thickness is too thin and details are losing structure. Bump minimum back up to 0.8 mm.

Horizontal banding or "zebra stripes"

Inconsistent extrusion at low layer heights. Try: slower speed (30 mm/s), clean extruder gear, increase temperature by 5°C, or switch to a spool that's fully dry.

Ghosting / echo of the image

Ringing from fast movements. Slow down outer walls to 25 mm/s and enable input shaping if your printer supports it.

Colors look wrong under my lamp

Warm LEDs shift tones. For evaluating a lithophane, use a daylight-balanced bulb (4000–5000 K) or a window.

Print warps off the bed

Because lithophanes are vertical and tall, they have a small base. Use a brim (5–8 mm), clean the bed, and keep the enclosure closed.

7. Where to print if you don't own a printer

You don't need a 3D printer to enjoy lithophanes. Export the STL from the Vextrude maker and upload it to a service:

• Craftcloud / JLCPCB / PCBWay — cheap global FDM printing, typically a few dollars for a small lithophane.
• Local maker spaces and libraries — many have FDM printers available for a per-gram fee.
• Etsy "lithophane" sellers — drop the STL into a custom listing. You pay for labor but get a finished gift shipped ready.

When you upload, specify white PLA, 100% infill, 0.08 mm layer height, vertical orientation. Default settings from a generic print service will almost always look worse than these instructions produce.

8. Gift ideas & project inspiration

• Nightlight. Drop a USB LED tealight inside a sphere or dome lithophane of a loved one's face.
• Wedding table cards. Heart-shaped lithophane of each couple's photo, standing on the table.
• Anniversary frame. Flat lithophane of a wedding photo, slotted into a simple picture frame with an LED strip behind it.
• Pet memorial. Curved lithophane, backlit — a low-key, personal way to remember a pet.
• Holiday ornaments. Small wave or curved lithophanes of family photos, one per year, hung on a tree.
• Gift packaging. A tiny keychain lithophane tied to a gift looks unbelievably thoughtful for a ten-minute print.