Labs

Although professionals use special cameras to shoot scenes in 3D, if you accept certain limitations you can get very acceptable results with an ordinary digital camera. The secret is to take two shots -called a stereo pair - from two slightly different viewpoints. These two images then have to be displayed in such a way that the

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viewer sees one with only the left eye and the other with the right. Using just the one camera works with stationary subjects but is not suitable if something is likely to move between the two shots.

Although there are many ways of displaying a stereo pair, one of the simplest is to turn them into an anaglyph, which the human brain perceives as three-dimensional when viewed through a pair of red-cyan glasses. The purpose of Z-Anaglyph is to turn a stereo pair into an anaglyph that can then be viewed onscreen or printed out.

Operation of the software couldn't be simpler. Open up the two images, tell Z-Anaglyph whether you want a red-cyan (which works with colour) or red-green (monochrome only) anaglyph, preview the result onscreen and make any fine adjustment to the registration of the two images. When you've finished, save it to file. Z-Anaglyph does its job well and creates some striking results.