Lithophane viewing direction

[jseiler]

I made my first lithophane last weekend. It turned out pretty good. I used 1/4" white corian. I did not carve deep enough (only .13 in instead of .22"). I was wondering though, which side should be displayed and which should be lit? It looked better with the flat side lit and the relief side displayed, but it looks like it should be lit from the relief side and the flat side displayed when looking at other people's litho pictures.

1) Which side should be lit?
2) Are there readymade light boxes for standard size lithos that look good (not cheesy black plastic)?

regards,
John

[waltie]

John, I do my lithos at .160, gives great results

I display mine light to the flat side

[jseiler]

I cut a final version for a gift. Its cut at .22" deep, its 6x8" and it took 5 hours to cut on my old pr32 (single pass. .125" rounded bit, .015" stepover). It looks pretty nice (high contrast). It still looks blurry viewed from the wrong side, but it looks very nice lit from the flat side. I was kind of hoping it would look good the other way (flat side out), but it doesn't seem to work well that way.

Its amazing how much detail from the original photograph is retained in the relief.

regards,
John