Post 1: What are Anaglyphs and Phantograms?

This is a 3D Color Anaglyph of an Antique French Monstrance. To view it properly, one has to wear the red and cyan glasses shown on top of the blog and look straight at the vertical screen. Cheap cardboard and gel glasses might work OK, but are more likely to cause ghosting, especially on a black background. The object traditionally appears in 3D behind the window. This particular subject works well because it is golden, with neither red nor cyan. If the subject contains red and/or cyan, it is best rendered in black and white or sepia tones. 
Click here for a full screen version.

The image above is a  Phantogram, a special king of Anaglyph of an object that is photographed on a tabletop at a 45 degrees angle, and looked at from the same angle on a screen or print placed horizontally. The object appears very realistically above the surface of the screen. The perspective has to be corrected and the image distorted anamorphically in order to get the effect. There is a very good tutorial here, and another one there. The black background and high contrast does cause some ghosting.  Click here for a full screen version.