Choose a photo and frame it in the window. Check the backlit preview, then download a lithophane sized for your carriage lantern. Your photo stays in this browser; nothing is uploaded.
Frame the photo
Drag the photo or the text · pinch, scroll or slide to zoom
Backlit preview
Roughly how it glows in the lantern
Text
Drag text in the frame to move it
No text yet. Add a line for a name, date or greeting.
Each line is separate, with its own font, size and position. Dark text is thick plastic and shows dark when lit; Glow text is thin and shines. An outline helps text stand out on a busy photo.
Lantern size
The same panels fit Carriage Lantern and Carriage Lantern 2.
Higher darkens faces and skies; lower opens up shadows.
The edges are always 4.0 mm so the panel fits the slots.
Detail
Orientation
Getting a good lithophane from a photo
Choose a photo with a clear subject: one or two faces, an animal, a building or a silhouette. Busy group shots turn to mush at this size.
Fill the frame. Zoom in until the subject takes up most of the window, since a small subject loses its detail.
Plain backgrounds glow best. Sky, snow or a blurred background reads as clean light.
Raise the contrast a little. Lithophanes flatten tones, so 1.1–1.4 usually looks closest to the photo once it's lit.
Watch the dark areas. If the preview shows a large black patch, it will look like a hole in the lantern, so lift Brightness or lower Mid-tones.
Text needs to be big. Keep letters at least 6 mm tall and bold, especially script fonts. Give Dark text on a dark photo a 0.5–1 mm outline.
Print settings: white PLA, standing upright, 100% infill, 0.12 mm layers if you can (0.2 mm works but shows banding). Use a brim if it wobbles.
Download format: on claude.ai the download is a .zip with one .stl inside, because claude.ai won't hand out .stl files directly. The copy saved on your PC downloads a plain .stl.