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Special Effects

Welcome to Adorama's school of visual wizardry

By Mason Resnick - March 9, 2009

You are about to enter another dimension, where time, space, color, and light itself can be manipulated at will. No, it's not the Twilight zone...it's Adorama's in-depth guide to Special Effects Photography!

We've devoted an entire area of the Adorama Learning Center to special effects photography because:
a) it's fun;
b) for aspiring pros, many techniques can be applied to jazz up your portfolio and assignments;
c) transforming a normal subject into something that looks like it's from another planet can be a very creative, fulfilling activity; and
d) it's fun

Software? Not required

Surprisingly, many special effects can be done in camera, and do not require any work in image-editing programs. Some techniques can only be done with film, although most can be done either in camera or after the fact using Photoshop or some other image-editing program. We'll show you both ways.

While many of our staff of world-class photography experts have contributed to this section, none has provided as much useful information as Elinor Stecker-Orel, who has spent a lifetime collecting and writing about techniques to push your camera to its outer limits. We don't call her our Special Effects Diva for nothing!

Dive in, and learn some magic!

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3D Photography Grows Up

Get out your red-cyan glasses: We show you how to create 3D images in Adobe Photoshop

ArticleSpecial Effects Techniques and How-Tos - by Peter Lipschutz, August 20, 2009

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Remember reading comic books or going to the movies and donning those odd-looking cardboard eyeglasses with translucent red over one eye and cyan over the other so you could see the images in eye-popping stereo? You can create Anaglyph 3-D photos digitally!Read more

TAGS: photography, digital, 3D, special effects, stereo

Wiggle 3D: How To Make Animated 3D Images

Play with your brain’s depth perception using animated GIFs

ArticleSpecial Effects Techniques and How-Tos - by David Fitsimmons, August 17, 2009

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Put a funky new spin on stereoscopic digital photography, and have a ball with Wiggle 3D.

TAGS: 3D, sigma, 3-D, Wiggle 3D, Sigma DP1, Sigma DP2, David Fitzsimmons, Harry Potter

How to Build a Two-Camera Rig for Wiggle 3D

Create 3D images with this do-it-yourself two-camera rig

ArticleSpecial Effects Techniques and How-Tos - by David Fitsimmons, August 17, 2009

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When the action is moving and you ant to catch it in 3D, a single camera won't do. Here's how to create a support for two cameras that you can shoot simultaneously for 3D action photography!