Ochre / blue anaglyphs made in Photoshop
Here’s a pic of what your glasses should look like (kinda).
ColorCode anaglyphs are made with ColorCode© software. According to Claus Krarup (previously a share-holder in the company), the colour is truly coded, hence the name. Colours in the original are changed to match the light transmission of the ochre filter. This conversion table is a secret and not revealed in the patent…. but isn’t too hard to decode.
On a standard pair or Red/Cyan 3D glasses, the RGB (red/green/blue) is distributed like this..
|R|=|GB|==, <—-Regular RED/CYAN Glasses Diagram ?:-}
but the super bowl glasses are like this…
|RG|=|B|==, <—-Super Bowl 3D Glasses Diagram, with a smidgon of a tweak on the blue, and maybe just a hair on the green. ?:-D
It means that you get better greens, reds & blues. On red/cyan anything that is red or cyan (red=skin), they show up blurry. On top of that, the blue/amber images are easier to view for users who don’t have 3D glasses.
If you want to find the exact color conversion table for ColorCode, just go to one of their 3D websites, find a white 3D image on a black background, and take note of the halos to the right and left of the white image. You’ll just need to find something that is #FFFFFF and #000000, with a blue/yellow halo to the right and left. If you take a color sample of those halos, you’ll see that they don’t come out to be exactly (0,0,255) and (255,255,0) on the RGB colorscale. That difference is their “top secret, patented, color spcetrum.” Mess around with the Green/Blue Levels (or brightness) to fine tune the colors you need.
How Can I make my own 3D images?
Simple.
- Take two pictures, side by side. Take them similar to how your eyes see the world. Think Wayne’s World: “Camera one. Camera two. Camera one. Camera two.” I like to use the Continuous Exposure feature to rattle off a series of 6 or 7 photos, as I swing my body from right to left. That way you’re almost always guarenteed to get one steropair good enough to make into an anaglyph image.
- Download Gimp.
- Google “Tutorial Gimp Anaglyph” and read the first few links. Then, maybe search the same thing on YouTube. I haven’t checked, but I’m sure something is out there.
- Have fun.
So, How Can I make my own 3D images, IN PHOTOSHOP ?
Simple:
- Bring in your right an left images onto seperate layers.
- Make the top layer 50% opacity, and lined the two images up to the most likely focal point.
- Bring the layer back up to 100% opacity
- Select the right image, hit CTRL + L (for levels), then select the Red Channel, and change the output levels to 0 and 0. Then choose the Green Channel, and again, change the output levels to 0 and 0. Then click OK. That image should turn a deep blue.
- Now select the left layer, hit CTRL + L (for levels), then select the Blue Channel, and change the output levels to 0 and 0, and click OK.
- Now, select the top layer (it can go either way), and change the Blend Mode to Screen.
- Now just crop out the blue and yellow border/overlap, and you have a 3D Blue/Amber (ColorCode) image, just like 3D Chuck, 3D Super Bowl Commercials, etc.
Note: If you want the exact ColorCode spectrum, you do need to add a few extra steps. I’ve just generalized how you can get a working image in just a few steps. To brighten the image, you can’t use the Brightness/Contrast feature, because it will change the color of the halos. What you need to do instead is make a duplicate copy of the right and left image, merge them together (CTRL + E), and then adjust the opacity of that layer, for brightness. Pay special attention to the opacity level that is just low enough so the blue halos near black objects don’t show.
One More Note: If you want the specific ColorCode RGB levels, the best website to pull the values from is here – http://www.hp.com/united-states/campaigns/showroom/flash/ Click on a product, then click on images, and you’ll notice that they’re all on a white to grey gradient background. Take RGB color samples at the top pixel using the eye dropper tool in Photoshop. You’ll see that the Blue/Amber Values are a little different than (255,255,0) and (0,0,255). Good Luck!!!
What about making my own 3D images, IN GIMP ?
err…. let me get back with you on that one….
Here’s a YouTube video tutorial for now – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rN-i0NWoG8
Looking for some ColorCode 3D examples?
Click here if you just want to see some 3D Pictures Compatible w Super Bowl Glasses
Other ColorCode Info
The viewer’s ochre filter transmits red very well, but green is suppressed. It is claimed that printed ColorCode pictures are very close to true colours, even when seen without the goggles. In fact there is some fringing with yellow and blue ghosts and the image has a blue tinge. This is even more obvious when ColorCode software is not used and the author’s recommendation to enhance blue is followed.
Many amateurs use Photoshop. Anabuilder has a yellow/purple choice producing something near to ColorCode. (According to Etienne Monaret, this choice is changing to yellow/blue on future versions of Anabuilder.) The results should not be called “ColorCode,” which is a trademark, just as Coca Cola is not Pepsi Cola.
ColorCode Cardboard viewers are made by American Paper Optics and are only slightly more costly than red/cyan viewers. Few people have them, which makes ColorCode pointless for the Internet. If you are digital projecting to an audience and supply the goggles, then of course you can use any filter colours you like.
| Have the left and right images, properly aligned and transformed, as 2 separate images in Photoshop. | |||||||||||||||||||
Prepare the right image for Blue Colour:Desaturate so that it is grey (but is still in RGB mode). |
Shift Ctrl u | ||||||||||||||||||
Lighten the right image to overcome the very dark blue filter.This step is open to debate. It reduces the dark eye effect when blue is lightened, but blue lightening reduces colour fidelity and intensity on the final anaglyph. You can lighten in curves or levels, but the author favours a high pass filter, which not only reduces contrast but also sharpens the image, making it a bit easier to see details through the dim blue filter. You may have to brighten the low contrast, high pass image in levels or curves. OR you could use a custom filter, which sharpens vertical lines only, since stereo parallax depends on vertical details. For example, try these asymmetrical matrices ->The result may be too severe, but no problem, just use Edit / Fade to get just the effect you want. |
Filter / Other / High pass.
Shift/ctrl/f |
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| Select the right image and copy it. | ctrl a ctrl c | ||||||||||||||||||
| Activate the left image | Click on the left image | ||||||||||||||||||
| Choose the Channels palette | |||||||||||||||||||
| Activate the blue channel | Click on Blue channel | ||||||||||||||||||
| Paste the desaturated right image you have copied onto the clip-board into the left blue channel | Ctrl v | ||||||||||||||||||
| Turn on the RGB visualisation eye, but keep only the blue channel active. | |||||||||||||||||||
| You now have an ochre/blue anaglyph | |||||||||||||||||||
Final adjustmentsWearing the ColorCode goggles you can fine tune the stereo window by moving the blue channel, using horizontal arrow keys only. Adjust the blue channel brightness to optimum using curves (or levels). Too bright and the colours will shift to blue. Red becomes less saturated as blue becomes brighter. Adjust the red and green channels individually with curves (or levels) to: suit your eyes, optimise colour, optimise contrast (not too much) and reduce any ghosts. (Ochre/Blue anaglyphs can be almost ghost-free and very close to true colour). The CC filter has a low transmission for green and in forest scenes a bit of green boost seems to help, especially with a classic S shape curve on the green channel. Adjust the colour saturation, just as described above for red/cyan, to reduce ghosts and optimise colour. A standard method to brighten dark anaglyphs using levels is given by Mathew Reeves: Adjust the midpoint gamma of the overall image after rendering the anaglyph. In Photoshop, you can do this simply by using the Levels adjustment with the following settings: |
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| Save as a Photoshop file, to allow later corrections. | ctrl s | ||||||||||||||||||
| Crop the image as desired | |||||||||||||||||||
| Resize the image for your projector or monitor (E.g. 1024×768 pixels) | |||||||||||||||||||
| Save using low jpg compression (51 or better in Image Ready for the web or level 7 or better in Photoshop). |


This looks great!
I plan to use this for a project in my art class… I’ll put pictures on my website.