Apply a Stereoscopic 3D effect in Photoshop

In this tutorial you will learn how to add a retro 3D effect to any photograph, poster, or text using straightforward steps in Photoshop.

So here we have a Spinosaurus photographed on a railway in Poland. I have applied the black and white effect featured in this tutorial, however colour photos will work fine as well.

First duplicate your image so that you have 2 copies of your original layer.

Name one layer ‘red ‘and the other ‘blue/green’.

Now, with the ‘blue/green’ layer selected, go to Image>Adjustments>Levels.

In the Channel list choose ‘Red’.

Then drag the central grey pointer all the way to the right, and click OK.

This will have taken all the red out of the ‘blue/green’ layer.

Next select the Red layer, and again go Image>Adjustments>Levels.

This time you want to take away the blues and greens, so first choose ‘Blue’ and take the slider all the way to the right…

… then, with the box still up, choose ‘Green’ and take the slider all the way to the right, then click OK.

This leaves the layer entirely red.

Next change the blending mode of both layers to Screen.

Now you can either hide or delete your original layer.

Then select the ‘blue/green’ layer.

Use the Move tool to move this layer a little to the left, and you will see your 3D effect begin to appear.

Depending on the composition of your image you can adjust the position of the layer to suit the image.

I used the perspective transform tool to widen the left side of the image where the tail is closer to the viewer.

Remember you can apply this technique to any photo, poster or text.

Thanks for reading!