Cheap 3D

This is a quick-and-dirty way to make a 3D image. It creates the sort of 3D image where you stare past the screen and relax your eyes until the two images merge.

Tools
- a digital camera
- a large mirror, preferably without a frame
- a decent photo editing app

In my case, there was only one place I could do the shot. My bathroom has a large, frameless mirror mounted on the wall. Not exactly portable.

The ideal mirror would be a front-surface mirror, preferably not bolted to a wall.

The idea here is to set up the camera beside the mirror, as close as possible to it, and shoot down its length. What you'll get is an image of the objects in front of the camera, plus their reflections in the mirror.

Try to get the edge of the mirror vertical in the shot. If you don't, you'll need to fix it in editing.

In this case, the mirror is on the right-hand side of the camera. Everything on the right side of the image is a reflection. I'm the scruffy guy standing in the doorway.

If the edge of the mirror didn't come out vertical, now's the time to fix it by rotating the image.

Flip the reflected side of the image so that you end up with a reflection of the reflection.

Crop out any extraneous bits, like the edge of the mirror.

Scale the image down so that it's about 5" wide on the screen. Something around 400 pixels is probably a good size.

That's about it. Chances are the reflected side of the image is a bit blurry and maybe a little distorted but it won't make that much difference.