Lithophanes
A photograph you can hold up to the light.
A lithophane is a thin sheet of white plastic, thicker where the picture is dark and thinner where it's bright. Flat on a table it looks like nothing much. Lit from behind, the photograph appears. Upload one and we'll show you the plate — not your photo back, the actual plate — and price it while you watch.
Your lithophane
Lit from behind — this is the plate, not your photo. The two aren't the same picture.
Drop a photograph here
How this works
No black box — here's the whole method.
- Light falling through plastic drops off exponentially with thickness, not in a straight line. We invert that curve, so equal steps in your photograph come out as equal steps of brightness in the plate rather than a grey smudge.
- Most photographs contain no true black and no true white. We stretch yours to use the full thickness of the sheet first, which is worth about a third more contrast.
- The plate prints standing on its edge. Lying flat, the layer height would quantise the picture to about thirty shades of grey, and you'd see the banding.
- The preview is a simulation of the finished plate, computed from a measurement of the actual filament. It is not your photograph with a filter on it.
- Nothing is charged on this page. We check the plate over, then send a payment link.
Something unusual in mind — a set, an odd shape, a size we don't offer? Tell us about it.