Adobe Photoshop CC - Essentials Training

How to create the 3D glasses Anaglyph effect in Adobe Photoshop

Daniel Walter Scott

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Hi there, it's this effect, it's actually called Anaglyph. Nobody can remember, or at least I can't. Whenever I Google it I always have to type in '3D glasses effect'. You can see, there's a mixture of this red and cyan side by side making it give it that 3D look. We'll do it with images, we'll also show you how to do it with type. I say this in lots of videos, but it is super easy, it's a cool effect. Let's jump in now and learn how to make it. 
Let's open up our images, 'File', 'Open'. In '11 Visual Styles', open up 'Anaglyph 01' and '02'. This is the second one, we're going to work on this one first. For this to work we need to unlock the background and we do that, we know, by just double clicking the word 'background' and giving it a name. We're going to call it 'Red', we're going to right click 'Red', duplicate that layer, and call it 'Cyan'. 
So the way for this to work, is you select on 'Red', and you come down to this 'fx' and go to 'Blending Options'. What we do is, under 'Advanced Blending', there's this one called 'Channels'. For the red one, turn off green and blue, we're just leaving the red channel on. Channels can be complicated, but for this effect we don't need to know anything about them. Similar process for cyan. Click on it, go down to 'Effects', 'Blending Options', and in here we want to turn just red 'off'. That leaves us with the cyan color, mixing green and blue. Click 'OK'. Now we just need to offset them. 
Basically we need to move one one way, and one the other way. It really depends on how advanced you want this effect. I'm going to undo, put it back. You can just be super subtle. And with the Move Tool it's easier with your keyboard, just use your right arrow. So I've got cyan selected, use your right arrow. I'm just kind of tapping it to the right. Now that's kind of like a subtle effect. Can you see, it's kind of, you see it all in there, right? Or you can go a bit further, and just kind of really drag it out there. Now it is subtle, move it across a little bit. Tappy tappy tap. 
Now one thing you might notice is-- see this red band that appears? It depends on which way you went with it, left or right. Or you might end up with a cyan band. You have to just trim that up using the Crop Tool. So make sure you go a little bit of extra space. I'm just going to trim that up. Using my Crop Tool, hit 'return', you're away. Let's go a little bit further, let's go to 'Anaglyph 02'. Now we could just do this image. You don't have to but I quite like it when it gets either black and white, or quite low colors. It really accentuates the cyan and the red. You could go to 'Adjustments', and do 'Black and white'. There's a little option here. We did have it a million years ago, way back at this course. I'm going to go to 'Edit, 'Step Backwards'. 
What I often like doing is under 'Adjustments' using 'Vibrance'. And just lowering the vibrance rather than like making it completely black and white. I like to have there a little bit of subtle colors still in there. Now the one thing we need to do is we've got this, like very non-destructive vibrance layer that we can turn on and off, and that's very good, but doesn't work for this effect. So what I have to do is click 'Vibrance', hold 'Shift', click 'Background'. Right click the two of them, and say 'Merge Layers'. It's bad and destructive, but we just need it for this effect to work. Just double click this first layer, let's call it 'Red'. Let's right click him, duplicate him, and let's go to 'Cyan'. 
The same principle's here. 'Cyan' layer selected, I'm going to go to 'fx'. I'm going to go to 'Blending Options', and I want red 'off', gives me cyan and the red layer, everything but-- so I just want everything but red, not everything but, just want red. So cyan is red off, and red is just red on. That's not helping you at all, is it? So I'm just going to move it left and right, just kind of see where we get. Now in this case you can kind of see, the cropping are going on over to here. So 'Crop Tool', tidy it in, it should snap to the edge nicely. 
Let's look at doing text, it has the same principle. So let's grab my 'Type Tool', I'm going to click once. Well, it's a big font. I'm going to go down to, I don't know, maybe 500. Let's type in-- still too big. Find an appropriate Font Size, not 500, not even 200. I think mine's dealing with-- because I transformed it last time. I'm just going to scale it down using 'Command T' or 'Control T'. I'm going to pick a font color that's not red. You can see it's actually white. It's because I'm in between these two layers. 
So the text has to be on top for this to work. And I know, there's my Scott Shoes. Scott Shoes. To your horror I'm going and picking fonts now instead of just getting on with it. Just getting it down again. So I've got, I don't even know where this is going to go, there it's going to go. Hit 'return'. So it's the same principle from now on. We just duplicate it and then play with those advanced Blending Modes. So right click it, I'm going to duplicate this layer. This one's going to be 'Shoes Red'. This is going to be-- I double click the word 'Shoes' and this one's going to be 'Shoes Cyan'. So this one here, I click on 'fx', 'Blending modes', cyan is red off. The red one, is just red on. Go away, go away. 
Then we can just offset it again using my arrows. Again, depends on how-- I'm going to stick both of them together so I can move them around. And that is the Anaglyphic effect. If you're like me, you'll never remember the word Anaglyphic. I always have to Google, "What is the 3D glasses effect?" 1980s, generally something will pop up called Anaglyph. If you do have some of those glasses, nobody does, I couldn't find any to make it work but apparently this actually works. Get some 3D glasses, order them from eBay or Amazon. Put them on, and apparently it's all ready for 3D. I'm watching Ghostbusters in 3D, super cool, and frightening. I still get nightmares from one of those early Ghostbusters movies. The one with the painting, and it came out. I was young. I'm babbling now let's get on to the next video.