The “Hello, World!” program has been a standard way to introduce people to programming for decades. The classic C program goes something like this:
#include <stdio.h>
int main() { printf("Hello World"); }
And with that, you print the simple phrase “Hello World” to the screen and take your first step into the amazing world of software development.
Borrowing from our roots in programming, we decided to create our own “Hello World” example for the lenticular printing world. This simple phrase turns out to be a great way to demonstrate why some color combinations work better in lenticular printing than others.
Take, for example, a simple black-and-white lenticular. We often receive images from customers that have very light backgrounds combined with very dark foreground elements. Unfortunately, that high contrast can be a classic recipe for ghosting and can muddy the transition between images.
To demonstrate this, take a look at the two videos below.
Both lenticulars contain two frames. The first frame contains only the word HELLO, while the second contains only the word WORLD. Ideally, as the lenticular flips from one image to the other, you should see HELLO and then WORLD, with as little of the opposite word showing through as possible.
Lenticulars are designed to flip from one image to another. That is their magic; that is their purpose in life. Ghosting occurs when parts of one image remain visible when you are supposed to be seeing the other image.
For the vast majority of lenticulars, the goal is to have as little ghosting as possible, giving you a clean view of each image as you turn or tilt the lenticular.
Now, take a look at the lenticular with the white background and black letters. Notice that the words HELLO and WORLD remain visible through almost the entire flip. Instead of one word disappearing as the other appears, portions of both words continue to show through. In most cases, this is exactly what we don’t want.
Next, look at the lenticular with the black background and white letters. What a difference! Here, HELLO and WORLD appear much more independently of one another. As you turn the lenticular, one word disappears and the other takes its place, producing a much cleaner flip.
This is a common issue in lenticular printing. It can occur whenever a very light background—not just pure white—is combined with strongly contrasting elements, particularly very dark or bright colors. One of the easiest ways to reduce the problem is to avoid large areas of very light, flat color. Adding some texture or detail to the background can help, and in some cases, simply reversing the light and dark areas—as we did in our HELLO WORLD example—can make a dramatic difference.
Now take a look at the two images in our next example. You can probably already guess what’s going to happen when we combine them into a lenticular.
This type of imagery is best avoided when designing a lenticular unless ghosting is actually part of the intended effect. But sometimes these are the images you have to work with.
In an upcoming post, we’ll put these two images on a lenticular so you can see exactly what happens. We’ll also look at some strategies we can use to minimize the ghosting and get the cleanest flip possible.
Ready to make your own lenticular? Click the button below to get started
