How to make your own custom gobos at home with an inkjet printer

Gobos have become very fashionable lately. It’s largely thanks to the number of projector modifiers available for LED lights and strobes now. Often, these modifiers will have a slot that lets you slide in a gobo to project a pattern or shape at something.

You’re generally limited to the designs the manufacturer sells, but you can make your own. All you need is an inkjet printer and some transparent sheets. In this video, photographer and YouTuber Creativ Vision walks us through the process.

Make your own gobos with inkjet transparencies

Gobo projectors are fantastic additions to a light. Whether it’s a continuous LED for video or a strobe for photography, they offer a lot of possibilities. We’ve seen a lot of great-looking ones, too, like the Godox attachments announced last year.

But being stuck with just their gobos can be quite limiting. The trick to making your own is… Well, there’s not much of a trick. You’re making your own designs and then printing them out. It’s what you print them on that makes this work.

You need to find transparent sheets. These will let the white light pass through unprinted areas but block or colour it in the printed parts. These can then be easily cut to shape to fit the gobo holder for whatever projector modifier you’re using on your lights.

There are some concerns voiced in the comments of that video about how well printed gobos will stand up to the heat of a light. This, too, will depend on the modifier and the light you’re using.

Some lights run cooler than others, and while strobes may only be on for a fraction of a second, they can be significantly hotter than quite warm LEDs for a brief time. I would suggest specifically looking for OHP (Overhead Projector) sheets. These are designed to sit on top of a bright, hot bulb for sometimes fairly long durations.

Of course, these are usually designed to go through laser printers, too, where they’re subjected to a lot of heat during the toner bonding process. If they can survive that, they can probably survive sitting over an LED or strobe for a while before needing to be replaced.

But whether you go laser or inkjet, the gobos will still likely need replacing at some point. They won’t be as durable as those metal cutouts, but you get a lot more options when you can make your own. And beyond the price of the printer, for those who don’t have one, you’re making them for very little cost each time.

And if all else fails, you can always just use an actual projector. And while you’re thinking about what design to come up with, go check Creativ Vision’s Instagram feed. You will be very inspired!

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