Light box for tracing on a tablet screen

An online tracing light box: the screen of a tablet or laptop lights the paper from below, the way a light pad does. A picture can be shown at its real size in centimeters or inches once the screen is calibrated with a bank card, and a picture larger than the screen is split into screen-sized tiles with an overlap and registration crosses. A photo can be turned into bold outlines or pure black and white so it shows through thicker paper, and the lock keeps a resting palm from moving it.

How to trace a picture on a tablet

1
Load the picture

Choose a file, paste one from the clipboard, or start with plain white light.

2
Set the size and the look

Fit it to the screen, or calibrate the screen and type the real width; switch to outline if the photo is hard to see through paper.

3
Turn on the light box and lock it

The picture fills the screen; lay the paper on top, tape it down if you can, and press Lock.

4
Trace screen by screen

For a large picture, trace the pink crosses as well, then move to the next screen and line its crosses up with your marks.

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Put a picture under the paper and trace it at the size you need

Drop a picture here or click to choose one
JPG, PNG, WEBP, GIF, SVG, HEIC ·
Ctrl+V (⌘V) works anywhere on the page too.

Tracing onto a wall, a canvas on an easel or a sheet bigger than you want to tile? AR drawing puts the picture over your phone camera instead.

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What the light box does

Real size, not «about right»
Calibrate the screen once with a bank card (85.6 mm) or a ruler, then type the width: 18 cm on the screen is 18 cm on the paper. The calibration is shared with the Online Ruler.
Big pictures across several screens
An A2 poster on a 10-inch tablet held upright becomes 9 numbered screens with a 0–30 mm overlap and pink registration crosses; the plan shows which ones are done.
A lock a palm cannot undo
Every touch, scroll, zoom and back gesture is blocked; unlocking takes a 2-second hold in the corner plus a tap on a button that appears in the middle.
Outline from a photo
Edge detection with a detail slider and a line width from 0.3 to 2 mm, or a black-and-white threshold with an automatic level — solid lines show through thicker paper than a photo does.
Mirror, grid, contrast
A mirror image for transfers, an N×N grid from 2×2 to 8×8, grayscale, negative, contrast, brightness and opacity.
Scans at their own size
A JPG or PNG scan that stores its resolution (300 dpi, 600 dpi) is offered at the size it was scanned — useful for sewing and embroidery patterns.

Why a screen can replace a light pad

A light pad is just an even white light under the paper, and a tablet screen at full brightness is that light for ordinary printer and sketch paper. It can also do what a pad cannot: scale, turn and mirror the picture, draw it as outlines, and split a poster into screens with crosses to line them up. What it needs from the page is an exact scale and a lock that holds while your hand rests on it.

Questions about tracing on a screen

Why is the picture the wrong size on paper, and how do I fix it?

Screens differ in pixel density, so a page cannot know how long a centimeter is on yours. Calibrate once: hold a bank card to the screen and match the blue card, or measure the striped bar with a ruler. After that the width you type is the width on paper. If you later zoom the browser, the tool recalculates the size; after switching to another monitor, calibrate again.

The picture is bigger than my tablet. How do I trace it on one large sheet?

Switch to Real size and type the width. The tool splits the picture into screen-sized tiles that overlap by the amount you set, numbers them row by row and puts pink crosses in the overlaps. Trace a screen together with its crosses, slide the tablet under the next part of the sheet, and line the crosses on the screen up with the ones you drew. Turning the tablet 90° sometimes saves a screen — the tool tells you when.

Will the lock stop my palm from moving the picture?

Inside the page, yes: touches, scrolling, pinch zoom, double-tap, long-press menus and the browser back gesture are all ignored while locked. What a page cannot block are system gestures — the swipe from the bottom edge on iPhone and iPad, and the home gesture on Android. For those, turn on Guided Access (iOS) or App pinning (Android) before you start.

The photo is too faint through my paper. What helps?

Switch the look to Outline or Black & white: solid black lines on white light show through far thicker paper than a photo does. Raise the line width to 1–1.5 mm and turn the screen brightness to maximum. For watercolor or mixed-media paper, tracing paper over the screen and a transfer afterwards works better than tracing directly.

When do I need the Mirror button?

When the traced lines end up face down: rubbing graphite from the back of the sheet onto wood or canvas, iron-on embroidery patterns, linocut and stamp blocks. Mirror the picture, trace it, and the transfer comes out the right way round.

Does a pencil pressing on the paper scratch or trigger the screen?

Through a sheet of paper a pencil is not registered as a touch on most screens, but pressure can leave marks on a soft matte screen protector. Put a sheet of clear film or tracing paper between the screen and your drawing paper, and use a softer pencil (HB–2B) with light pressure.

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✨ Content Creators 🎓 Students 👨‍👩‍👧 Parents & Families
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