Lenticulars - Interlacing with Lenticular Image Creator

We already know that we can interlace with Lenticulars - Interlacing with SuperFlip for free but there's also Lenticular Image Creator Software, created by Jameson Bennett that's also free (for personal use). Let's have a look at LIC then, shall we?

Here, I have loaded 5 frames. Recall that number of frames = printer resolution / lpi (lenticules per inch aka lenticular pitch). Since I am planning to use a 60 lpi lenticular lens and I intend to print at 300 dpi, the number of frames is indeed 5. Note that I could have opted to print at 600 dpi and chosen 10 for the number of frames. Of course, the higher the resolution, the bigger the file to print (which may or may not be a problem for the printer's memory). The "Lens LPI" is whatever your pitch test tells you to choose and we have already discussed the "Printer DPI" option a bit. For HP printers, it's 600 dpi (or 300 dpi or 1200 dpi). I don't know about other printer brands but it's either 600 or 720 dpi (You can easily find out anyways.) The "Viewable Image Size" is whatever size you want the interlaced to be (without counting the registration marks on the left and/or right side). The "Final Output Size" includes the registration marks if you have checked them in the "Registration" tab. So, if you have checked both left and right alignment marks (each with a 0.25 inch width), the final output width is gonna be 0.5 inch wider than the viewable image width. Those sizes depend on whatever lenticular lens you are gonna use to laminate the interlaced image. In my case, I am using a 4x6 lenticular lens. Once everything is all set, you just press the "Interlace" button and LIC will generate and save the interlaced image for you.

This is what you see if you click on the "Registration" tab. Alignment marks are useful in terms of making sure the lenticular lens is aligned in the vertical direction.

Unlike SuperFlip, LIC doesn't allow you to print the interlaced image directly. I like to use Gimp to load the interlaced image and print it. Before printing, you have to make sure the print size is correct. To do that, go into "Image"->"Print Size..." and adjust the resolution to whatever dpi (ppi) you chose in LIC. If you change the print size unit to inch, you should get the same output size you had in LIC. Now, you are ready to print the interlaced image. In all cases, don't let the printer resize the image! The image printed on the paper should be the same size as the final output size indicated by LIC.

When the resolution is pretty high, you may end up with gigantic files to print and the printer may not like it at all (not enough memory). If, for some reason, you can't cancel the print job, you may have to stop the print spooler and restart it to flush the printing queue. To do that (windows 7), click on "Start", "Control Panel", "System and Security", "Administrative Tools", "Services", and locate the "Print Spooler". If you stop it and then restart it, the printer queue will be purged and you will be able to print again (at a lower resolution this time).

I haven't talked about LIC's pitch test creation capability (under the "Calibrate" tab) because I haven't tried it. I am sure however that it's quite similar to Lenticulars - Pitch Test with SuperFlip and certainly as reliable.

Something that's a bit weird about LIC is that when you press the "Interlace" button and give the file name (including the extension), nothing seems to happen. Solution: When you give the file name, use the drop-down "Files of type" menu, select a format and then type the name of the file without the extension.