Public interest in the camera lucida has been high since the publication of David Hockney's claim that artists from the past extensively used the instrument. These claims are explored in Weschler and Landi cited above. Martin Kemp explores the use of the camera obscura in art.

The use of the instrument is described in The Museum of Science and Art circa 1890: 'The observer places upon its table, a sheet of drawing paper, and the instrument being placed level with his eye, he looks into it, and sees the object to which it is directed, and at the same time sees, in the same direction, the sheet of paper which is upon his table, so that in fact, the object to be drawn, or its optical image, is seen projected and depicted on the paper. If he take in his hand a pencil, and direct it to the paper, as if he were about to write or draw with it, he will see his own hand and the pencil directed to the paper upon which the object is already optically delineated ; and he will consequently be able, with the utmost facility and precision, to conduct the point of the pencil over the outlines of the object and those of every part of it, so as to make as correct a drawing of it as could be made by the process of tracing, in which a picture, placed under semi-transparent paper is traced by a pencil moving over its outlines'.