For years, Photoshop has been the foremost image manipulation software empowering designers to create and modify images for print, multimediaⁱ and the Web. Now, the newest version of the software, CS4 Extended, has a group of 3-D modeling features that can be used to create and print presentation-quality 2-D and 3-D composites.
Photoshop CS4 opens and supportsⁱ 3-D files that have been created in Adobe Acrobat 3D Version 8, 3D Studio Max, Alias, Maya and Google Earth. 3-D images can also be rendered from scratch using a 2-D image as a starting point.
Many 3-D images have the unique characteristic of looking incredibly real. I’m sure that there are few of us who have not been terrorized by hyper-real dinosaurs on movie screens. And that really says it all. 3-D images, whether still or in-motion can create a believable reality from fantasies and nightmares generated by our imaginations.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN
But wait! Before you dive into the world of Photoshop 3-D image processingⁱ, you need to put down a few bucks to upgrade your video processor to one that supports OpenGL, a software and hardware standard that accelerates video processing. Without an OpenGL video card, Photoshop uses Ray-Trace rendering software to display 3-D files, and it’s slow and clunky. When working with large or complex images, such as 3-D files, Open GL significantly improves rendering performance. After the OpenGL video card has been installed on your system, enable it in Photoshop Performance Preferences.

3-D BASICS
Photoshop 3-D files are composed of unique components that enable them to be dynamically and interactively manipulated from the four 3D Panels shown in Figure 1.

The entire 3-D image and all of its components are called the Scene. This is the stage in which the 3-D model (or models) exist. The scene panel displays a list of all the characteristics of the models, including the Meshⁱ the Material and the Lights.

The structural component of a 3-D image is called a Mesh, which creates the underlying form of the 3-D model. In Photoshop, a mesh is an invisible skeletal structureⁱ built from a specific number of individual polygons. A 3-D model always has at least one mesh and may combine multiple meshes. In Photoshop, meshes can be viewed in several render modes. The configuration of the polygons can’t be altered per se, but it can be transformed (scaled, rotated, dragged or slid) with the 3D Tools. For a mesh to be distorted, it must first be converted to a Smart Object, which removes its status as a 3-D layer. After the distortion is performed, it can be reconverted back to a 3-D layer.

3-D images are also composed of Materials. A mesh can have one or more materials associated with it that control its surface appearance. A material can use a Texture Map (a 2-D image file that creates various visual qualities, such as color, patternⁱ, shininess or topography).

A 3-D image is illuminated by Lights. There are three types of lights - Infinite, Spot and Point. Multiple light sources can be created, and the color and intensityⁱ of lights can be adjusted. Lights can be positioned anywhere on the scene.

2-D TO 3-D
The 3-D menu (see Figure 2) displays a list of commands that render 3-D objects. 3-D contentⁱ can be created from scratch within Photoshop, using a 2-D layer as a starting point. All of these commands render a 2-D layer into a 3-D layer that attaches the 3-D information to the content and enables it to be edited. If the New 3D Postcard From Layer option is chosen, the entire content will be editable as a flatⁱ plane that can then be rotated or swiveled using the 3D Camera tools or by dragging the 3D Axis widget (see Figure 3). You can see a video of this feature demonstrated on Adobe TV at: http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1584v1024.

A 2-D image also can be wrapped around a simple predefined 3-D object, such as a cube, cone, cylinder or sphere by choosing the New Shape from Layer option from the 3-D menu. Even more complex objects, such as a hat, pyramid and even a donut are also available from the menu. Like a postcard, a shape too can be rotated or swiveled with the 3-D navigation tools found in the Tools palette or by using the 3D Axis widget.

An extruded mesh object can be generated from a grayscale. The darkest grays will produce receded areas of the reliefⁱ or the valleys, and the lightest grays produce the highest areas or the peaks. To see Photoshop wizard Russell Brown perform a step-by-step demonstration of this feature to create a 3-D topographical map go to: http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1511v1654.

ANAGLYPHIC AND LENTICULAR
A 3-D scene can look three dimensional when printed. There are two render settings that create 3-D images using Photoshop’s 3-D features. The Red Blue method produces an anaglyphic overlayⁱ composite. When viewed with red and blue 3-D glasses this composite produces the third dimension by altering the parallax of the red color information (see Figure 4). You actually see two images through two colored filters (the glasses), and your brain merges them into a single image with the illusion of depth. The further the red information is offset, the deeper into the picture plane the content will appear.

The second rendering setting, called Vertical Interlacing produces a lenticular effect by interlacing the image content into several planes. If the image is printed to an inkjet printerⁱ and a special lenticular lens is laminated over the print, it will appear three dimensional without 3-D glasses. For another cool Russell Brown video that demonstrates this and other techniques, go to http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1511v1655.

USABILITY
I personally found Photoshop CS4 Extended’s 3D Tools to be fairly easy to learn. I should mention there are many variables that can be modified with this software that I haven’t discussed, so I consider this aspect of Photoshop relatively powerful. The 3-D tools are primarily designed for creating editing and manipulating 3-D scenes and not specifically for creating in-the-round 3-D models. For that, you need a high-end 3-D rendering program like Maya or Light Room. The 3-D features in Photoshop CS4 certainly are interesting and entertaining and can even be useful under the right circumstances. I’m sure if anaglyphic or interlaced rendering techniques are applied to large images they can produce spectacularⁱ large-format graphic results.