Create a Stunning 3D Stereo Poster Using Photoshop and iClone

3D Stereo is a hot topic nowadays but few people know any practical applications aside from the entertainment value. Few people also know how 3D Stereo works and how easy it is to use with any Photoshop project. To learn more about the powers of 3D Stereo and how to use Stereoscopic 3D to your Photoshop advantage, we invite you to view some quick illustrations.

Take note that the below 3D Stereo image employs a traditional Anaglyph (Red/Cyan) format, but we are also able to create 3D Stereo printouts in any other format if needed.

Photoshop is known to help designers create high-quality printouts inside a layer-based editing environment that turns ideas into stunning images, but how can we turn Photoshop projects into real 3D Stereo printouts?

In this tutorial, we will use and combine the magic of Photoshop with the powerful 3D production tools of iClone. We will create a final image with exceptional high quality but done in a lot less time, since we intend to use real 3D objects in real 3D space.

At the end of this tutorial, you will be able to transform your Photoshop projects into eye-catching 3D stereo printouts done with the one-click 3D Stereo feature inside iClone. Download iClone trial version here.

About the Author Founded in 2000 in San Jose California, Reallusion Inc. is an award-winning developer of video creation software for real-time 3D animation that has always strived to bring the best value to users everywhere. Now Reallusion pushes the envelope by introducing a new way for Photoshop Users and Graphic Artists to create 3D Stereo prints from existing Photoshop projects.

Prepare Image Assets in Photoshop.

To begin, we will first open Photoshop in order to import our image assets. We will then prepare these images with their own alpha channels (mask) to later save them and use inside iClone. For tutorial purposes we will only prepare one image, but you may use the same procedure to prepare as many images as needed.

To start off, we import the first picture in order to separate the wanted area (mask) from the rest.

We then go to the Filter Tab and select ‘Extract’. (Filter>Extract)

Inside, we adjust the ‘Brush Size’ and paint on the edge of the target object. Remember that the smaller the size of the brush, the more edge details you will cover.

Now we click on the ‘Fill Tool’ to fill up the wanted area.

If needed, you may press the ‘Preview’ button to review.

After previewing, we use the ‘Clean Up’ tool to remove any excess area inside or around the edge mask.

The unnecessary area.

Paint to remove the area.

Now we use the ‘Edge Touch Up’ tool to retrieve the lost area near the edge.

Remember to draw from the inside out.

Fine-tune image with sharp edges.

Later, we click ‘OK’ to crop out the target object. This step is very important since it is here where we create the image’s alpha channel (mask).

Then we use the ‘Crop Tool’ to crop out the canvas.
We crop out the canvas in order to make the file size smaller, since we do not need the other area.

Now, we are ready to use this new image asset inside a real 3D environment. We save the image into PNG format and continue preparing the other images. We will repeat this step until we prepare and save all the images we intend to work with.

Note: Remember to keep all your image files in one single folder as this will be the asset library to work with.