P3D Re: Printing anaglyph

[aifxtony@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (Tony Alderson)]

Jon Hjerting wrote (digest 3009):
>I am wondering if there is anyone who has experience with printing
>anaglyph 3d. (...)He has ordered and received 3000 red/blue anaglyph
>glasses from rainbowsymphony.com. They recommended red/blue but a british
>shop called Real3 claimed that red/green was far better for printing.
>Which is right?<

The best anaglyph printing I have done or seen has been with red/green
inks; however, since you have already bought red/blue glasses, the maximum
optimization isn't available to you anyway.  You can still get very good
results, don't lose any sleep over that.  Especially since the "best"
red/green inks are special flourescent formulations that have to be custom
mixed....much more expensive than panatone.  But note your best ink may
still be more green than blue or cyan!

>(...)Do you have any advice on printing red/blue 3d pictures or do you
>know of where I could go to find out? Is it best to print in cmyk or in
>2-colour? Which pantone colours best match the glasses?<

It is better to print in 2 color.  CMYK printing cannot be perfectly
matched to any filters I've seen, there will always be some ghosting.
However, if you want to print  color anaglyphs, this is the only way to go.
If you're careful, the results can be acceptable.  (Look at some of Zone's
comics.  Or look at the recent National Geographic 3D issue. All the
anaglyphs are CMYK).  The CMYK may look bad on your monitor, but it should
print OK...(caveat emptor!)  The black plate can cause problems, sometimes
I don't print a black plate, but that makes the image look worse without
the glasses on (you lose all your contrast). As for the best panatone
colors, I can't answer that without knowing what filters you are using, but
you can get a good idea by looking at the panatone patch book through your
filters.

Go visit Ray Zone's website for more on anaglyphs:

www.ray3dzone.com

Tony Alderson
aifxtony@xxxxxxxxxxxxx



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