Tutorials on Lenticular Printing
Learn by examples, it’s easy and it’s fun
Although lenticular printing has been around for over a century, it never becomes popular until the last decade. Part of the reason is that people are keeping the knowledge to themselves and do not want to share it. With the unselfish desire to promote this industry, ViCGI is releasing a series of articles, from the basic to the advanced. We encourage college students in both art and computer science majors to group together to write free software for the industry. An open-source lenticular printing software will definitely help enlarge the size of the industry. For those who are interested in this field and need more information, please feel free to contact us. We also grant the rights for you to quote the contents of our articles as long as you give us the credit.
This article demystifies the arcane knowledge around lenticular printing from a printer’s perspective - a must-read for printers who want to start a lenticular printing business.
This article tries to demystify 3D lenticular printing by explaining the underlying working of the interlacing algorithm. By understanding how pictures are interlaced you will be able to appreciate the principles of lenticular printing better. This knowledge will also help you identify with the terminology used in many other lenticular software products.
In this article, the author explains the theory of how to convert a flat 2D picture into layered images for 3D lenticular printing by using only the basic functions of Photoshop in a systematic manner. By understanding the theory behind the conversion you will become confident in creating successful lenticular prints; whether you are using ad hoc software or Photoshop. Users of other graphics editing software such as Gimp or PhotoImpact will also benefit from this tutorial.
A pitch test is a critical step for calibrating the deviation of the lenticular lens and printer specifications. This article teaches you how to create pitch test patterns or stripes using the basic functions of Photoshop and Excel.
Through the analysis of changing patterns among different anaglyphic images and the relationship of their focal planes, this paper derives a way to measure the stereoscopic effect of an image. By using statistical analysis, an empirical value of the stereoscopic effect is then defined. Based on the principles of a photographic camera in 5 different scenarios, the author infers that the stereoscopic effect formulas derived are most suitable for mid-range photography. With some simple assumptions and approximation, the formula can also be extended to short distance and micro distance photography. The suitability and the impact of the parameters are then further discussed. All the topics discussed in this paper are applicable to the 3D effect of lenticular printing.
This article provides a quantitative analysis of the relationship between viewing distance and perceived depth on any 3D lenticular printing project.
People in the 3D industry, especially in lenticular printing, normally use anaglyph images as a tool to test and fine-tune their 3D rendering. This article presents a very simple way of making an anaglyph image using the most basic functions in Photoshop on two similar images with binocular disparity.
Before buying your lenticular sheets, it is always a good idea to know their technical specifications. It is the purpose of this article to describe their attributes so that you can determine which spec is most suitable for your DIY lenticular projects.
The main focus of this article is to address the ghosting challenge in lenticular printing and introduce a simple method called “Finger Finding” to detect the area where potential ghosting shadows will occur most often. It concludes by discussing ways to avoid potential ghosting issues in lenticular printing.
More to come later, please bookmark this page. Some of our most updated articles are posted on our lenticular blog.