P3D Re: Lenticulars

[aifxtony@xxxxxxx (Tony Alderson)]

Dale Walsh wrote (digest 3410):
>Apparently the interlacing can be done in Adobe Photoshop? --<

Yes, it can, but that's only practical for rather small prints and a
limited number of views--because you have to do the process "manually",
step by step, and because of the demands on memory and scratch disk space.

It's been a long time since I've done this, but basically, you make a
series of interlacing masks (the Fill With Pattern is useful for this),
each offset by one pixel. You then use these masks to comp the interlace.
You must interlace the images in reverse order, as the lens "flips" the
images. This is analagous to transposing slides.

I must confess I don't have a good understanding of the issues of dpi and
pitch and sizing for printing and all that. I pretty much followed a
receipe by Steve Aubrey and Bob Mannle, or sent the images off to them for
interlacing and prep for printing. Perhaps someone else can explain.

By the way, Mannle is now selling his interlacing software, and a program
to facilitate lenticular conversions in Photoshop (by managing the layers
and positioning). Take a look at www.3d-web.com. I don't know his pricing,
but I have used earlier versions of his software and they worked well.  The
nice thing about dedicated interlacing software is that it figures all that
out for you, and is easier, faster and more efficient with resources.  I
suspect, with at least 3 companies selling this type of software, the
prices will get more reasonable soon.  The Chinese software mentioned on
P3D the other day looks interesting.

Jeremy Illingworth (digest 3411):
>All this talk of lenticular software has made me want to create them on
my computer too.  I guess you could take the finished file to your
photo lab and they could print it on photo paper.  Has anybody done
this with their computer?<

Yes. Mannle, among others, has printed interlaced images with his ink jet,
then laminated the lens on the print to make lenticular proofs.  I have a
print Steve Aubrey made for me (before he got a laminator), where he bound
the print and the lens between two panes of glass, rather like a large
slide mount.


Tony Alderson



------------------------------