Lithophane Maker
Specialist lithophane site for lamps, night lights, globes and colour lithophanes
Opens lithophanemaker.com
About Lithophane Maker
Lithophane Maker is a long-running set of free web tools, each built for one kind of lithophane. Instead of one generic converter you open a dedicated page for a lamp shade, night light, globe, light box, heart, ceiling fan insert, Christmas tree, framed panel, circular panel or curved panel, and each page has settings that match that object.
The lamp tool shows the approach: it wraps up to four photos around a shade, lets you set top and bottom diameters, height, wave pattern and thickness, and adds a ledge that sits on a lamp you already own. The night light page sizes the slot to fit common plug-in lights. A colour lithophane page produces multicolour files for printing with matching filaments. Output is STL, and an account is only needed to save settings.
It suits makers who want a lithophane that fits real hardware. The number of fields can be a lot for beginners. The web tools are funded through Patreon, and a separate desktop version is sold through American Filament.
What you can make
- Lithophane lamp shades
- Night light lithophanes
- Lithophane globes
- Light boxes
- Colour lithophanes
How to use it
- Pick the tool for your object, such as Lamp or Night Light
- Upload up to four photos and crop them
- Enter the sizes of your lamp or light fitting
- Generate and download the STL
Good
- Dedicated tools for lamps, night lights, globes and more
- Designs are sized to fit real lamps and night lights
- Colour lithophane option
Not so good
- Many technical fields on each tool
- Older-style website
- Saving settings needs an account
What you'll need to print it
Materials and parts that give the best results with Lithophane Maker.
White PLA for lithophanes
A lithophane is only as good as the light passing through it. A neutral, evenly pigmented white gives smooth grey gradients, while an off-white or patchy batch shows up as blotches and colour casts once it is backlit.
- Bambu Lab PLA Basic Jade WhiteThe white Bambu uses in its own lithophane workflow; RFID presets make first prints predictable on Bambu printers.
- Polymaker PolyLite PLA Cold WhiteA cool-toned white (listed next to the warmer standard White) that keeps backlit photos crisp instead of yellowish.
- eSUN PLA+ WhiteAffordable and easy to find, good for large or batch lithophane panels.
Multicolour PLA for keychains and HueForge
Dual- and tri-colour silks give a single-nozzle printer colour shifts with no extra hardware, and a matched colour set is what lets HueForge and colour lithophanes blend thin layers into a full image.
- Bambu Lab PLA Silk Multi-ColorCo-extruded dual and tri colours that shift with the viewing angle; great for keychains and name tags.
- SUNLU Multi-Color Silk PLA (dual/tri/four-colour)Budget dual-, tri- and four-colour silk for colourful prints without an AMS.
- Bambu Lab PLA CMYK Lithophane BundleFour 1 kg spools (cyan, magenta, yellow, white) made for colour lithophanes and handy for HueForge-style layering.
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