Anaglyph Maker
Turn a stereo pair into a red-cyan 3D picture, in your browser.
Make a red-cyan 3D picture
Turn a stereo pair into one picture for red-cyan glasses. The anaglyph is made in your browser. Your pictures are not uploaded to our servers.
No file to hand? Try it with a photo from 1901.
Your anaglyph appears here.
No stereo pair? The Owl3D converter makes a side-by-side 3D image from an ordinary photo.
How to use it
- Add your pictures. Choose "One side-by-side image" or "A left image and a right image". Then press "Upload image", or drag the file onto the box. No pictures yet? Press "Load an example".
- Check the depth. Look at the preview through red-cyan glasses, red over the left eye. If near things look far and far things look near, turn on "Swap left and right".
- Pick Grey or Colour. Grey has no color for the filters to distort. Colour keeps the picture's colors, but strongly colored objects can seem to shimmer.
- Set the offset and download. Move the "Horizontal offset" slider until your main subject overlaps itself, which places it at the depth of the screen. Then press "Download PNG".
Under "Show" you can switch the preview between "Left view", "Right view" and "Anaglyph". The first two show the two pictures the anaglyph is made from. Switch back to "Anaglyph" to download.
What this anaglyph maker does
An anaglyph is a 3D picture that packs a left-eye view and a right-eye view into one image using two colors, usually red and cyan. This tool makes one from a stereo pair, which is why it is also called an anaglyph generator.
It takes a stereo pair in one of two forms:
- One side-by-side image. The left half is taken as the left eye's view and the right half as the right eye's.
- A left image and a right image, as two files.
It puts the left view in the red channel and the right view in the green and blue channels, which together make cyan. Through red-cyan glasses each eye then sees only its own view, and the brain fuses the two into depth. The result is for glasses with the red filter over the left eye.
The "Horizontal offset" slider slides the two views against each other, which moves the whole scene in depth: to the right pushes the picture back behind the screen, to the left brings it forward. The columns that only one view still covers are cut off, so the picture gets a little narrower.
The built-in example is a stereograph of riders facing Yosemite Falls, from 1901, in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the public domain. It is a black-and-white photo, so Grey and Colour give the same result.
Your pictures are processed on your device, in your browser. They are not uploaded to our servers.
Frequently asked questions
Which glasses do I need?
Red-cyan glasses, with the red filter over the left eye. The glasses must match the picture, so glasses in another color pair will not work with what this tool makes. Polarized glasses from a movie theater and the glasses of a 3D TV do not work either. For where to buy a pair, see anaglyph glasses.
Why does the depth look inside out?
The two views are the wrong way round, so each eye is getting the other eye's picture. Turn on "Swap left and right". Check also that the glasses are on with red over the left eye.
Why is the left eye's image cyan and the right eye's red?
That is expected. For a dark object on a light background, the left eye's copy shows as a cyan fringe and the right eye's copy as a red one. The red lens darkens cyan, so through it the left eye sees the cyan copy as the dark object, and the red copy fades into the light background. The cyan lens does the reverse for the right eye.
Why do I see faint double edges (ghosting)?
Ghosting is one eye's view leaking faintly into the other eye. How much you see depends on the glasses and the screen together, so try another pair of glasses or another screen. Keep the PNG the tool gives you: saving the picture again as a JPEG mixes the color channels and adds ghosting. If the picture is hard to fuse into one, move back from the screen or make it smaller.
What if my two photos are different sizes?
The left image sets the size. A right image of another size or shape is scaled and cropped to match it, and the tool says so under the upload boxes. It does not line the two photos up for you. The offset slider moves them sideways only, so if one photo is higher or tilted, align the pair first in a program such as StereoPhoto Maker.
Which files can I use?
Ordinary pictures, such as JPEG and PNG. A view that is more than 2,000 pixels on its long side is scaled down to 2,000. The tool does not read the two pictures inside an MPO file from a 3D camera or inside an Apple spatial photo (.heic); convert those to a side-by-side image first.
Should I choose Grey or Colour?
Choose Grey for black-and-white photos and for pictures with strong reds. A saturated red object is bright in the left view and nearly black in the right, so the eyes disagree and it seems to shimmer. Choose Colour when you want to keep the picture's colors and can accept that.
Are my photos uploaded?
No. The anaglyph is made in your browser, and your pictures are not uploaded to our servers.
What if I only have one ordinary photo?
A single picture has no second view, so software has to estimate the depth and generate one. The Owl3D converter, a desktop app for Windows and Mac, does this with AI on your own computer and saves the result as a side-by-side 3D picture, which you can then load here. The converter does not export anaglyphs itself, and the depth in a converted picture is the software's estimate, not a second photograph.
Learn more
How red-cyan 3D works, real pictures to try, and other ways to make one: Anaglyph 3D: how red-blue 3D works, and how to make it.