How are these stereo animations made?

NEWS:  This blog is no longer updated, view all new animations at clicksypics.com (they’re much better, I assure you!).  Now for your regularly scheduled post:

This is the most asked question, and here’s how it’s done….

Above is a stereo viewer from… way back when.  A stereo card with two images taken at slightly different angles was inserted into the viewer and allowed the user to see the image in 3-D.  These images were usually taken with a single camera that had two slightly angled lenses.  Because the angles of the lenses varied so much between cameras, each animation has a different sort of tilt. More on stereoscopy on wiki here.

To create the animation, I layer the images on top of one another and transition from one to the other.  Because of the different lens angles, this process usually involves resizing and repairing some areas to create one seamless image… or as seamless as you can make a hundred year old photograph.  So the image above, becomes this:

I came up with this idea on a whim, I don’t know that it’s been done before, I just knew that I had never seen any.  I think it’s a different kind of way to view the history and learn – which is never a bad thing.  Sometimes I’m not totally happy with how an animation turns out, but post it anyway because the image itself still has historical interest and value.

That’s it in a nutshell.  If you would like to view the complete collection, visit clicksypics.com.  No need to register to comment, let me know what you think – I can take it!

By the way, the images are all under a creative commons attribution license.  Share around, as long as you leave the watermark.  A link back to clicksypics.com would be appreciated, but isn’t required.

UPDATE: I’ve created a video with animation, which gets into more detail about how to create these in photoshop. Click me.

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