Introduction

The reduction in the price of digital cameras has lead to a marked increase in their use for stereo photography.  A digital camera provides instant results to a standard suitable for most of the viewing methods used for stereo images.  The taking of sequential stereo images to be be viewed with Holmes or Brewster type viewer is now a quick and low cost exercise.  The manipulation of these images for viewing on a computer monitor in anaglyphic or interlaced   format is simple and the software to enable this costs little.  Twinned digital cameras, now a reasonable option cost wise, enhances the possibilities, but that's another subject.

The software discussed here is only a representative sample of that which is available, but will serve the purpose of opening doors to those considering the switch from film to digital.  Indeed, all of the software available can be used with film sources once scanned to a digital format.

We will first take a look at the software needed to make stereo pairs in the various viewing formats available to us.  Then we shall take a look at preparing slideshows and finally, we will look at some specialist software for converting 2D images to 3D.

Whatever the choice of viewing method, there is one piece of computer software that is a must.  StereoPhoto Maker does everything and costs nothing, a remarkable fact.  With this program you will be able to produce Side-by-Side cards, parallel or cross-eyed, Anaglyphs in various colours, Interlaced images for TV or monitor viewing with shutter glasses, even lenticular images for auto-stereo monitors such as that produced by Sharp. 

If we are to print our stereo pairs, we need to prepare them in the right format for the viewer.  I choose to select the viewing method which best suits the aspect ratio of the image and find that some of my images suit more than one format.

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SUGGESTED SOFTWARE

Stereo PhotoMaker http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/index.html

If we would like to have our stereo images form a sequence to be viewed on a monitor, TV or big screen, it is necessary to compile a slide show which may include titles, transitions and audio.  There are quite a few such programs available from the likes of PC World, some are bundled with graphic cards and the like but none are really suitable for stereo work.  The ones that I have here are not designed specifically for that purpose either, but will work.

My reason for the choice given is the ability to produce a packaged slide show, that is to say, the completed show is self contained with its own player and takes the form of an EXE (executable) file that can run on any computer.

ProShow Gold is the more advanced of the two listed packages.  Now at version 3.0, it offers the opportunity to introduce effects with stereo slides that have not been available previously.  This is because layers have been introduce which means that left and right images can be placed side by side within the program allowing motion to be added independently to each.  Text captions can be layered in the same way.

If you wish to view some of my slide shows, please contact me by email and I shall provide you with a link.  The files are very large and you will need to have a broadband connection to download them.

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SUGGESTED SOFTWARE

ProShow Gold

http://www.photodex.com

Picture-to-Exe

http://www.wnsoft.com

Although I do not want to make a hobby out of converting 2D to 3D.  There are times that in the preparation of slide shows, I need to use a 2D image.  A case in point would is the use of  images from books used for reference purposes.  Although it would be acceptable to use 2D images alongside 3D in a documentary, 3D is more desirable. 

The simplest (StereoPaint) of software has limitations but has a short learning curve and will serve most purposes well.

For more advanced work StPaint must be the choice, having a wide choice of tools.

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SUGGESTED SOFTWARE

SteroPaint

http://www.zenratai.com/software/

StPaint

www.texnai.co.jp/eng/stereo3D/StPaint/index.html