As it’s Thursday as this is being published, this post can be considered to be another 3-D Thursday feature. I haven’t focused on creating this style of image in some time.  This week, however, Krista Stevens gave me the perfect opening to share some of  my favorites. In the photo challenge, she asks us to share our own concepts of “experimental.” Her choice of theme this week is wide-ranging and open. You can read the challenge post here. Her challenge gives me the opportunity to reprise the collection of images that I call 3-D pop-outs. I first saw the concept of a pop-out on a photo sharing site and thought it would be an interesting exercise in processing. The above image is probably my favorite example, it’s actually a blend of two separate images, the bugler is a statue inside the Arlington Cemetery visitor center and the scene is obviously one of the sections of the veteran’s cemetery.

It was a bit of a trick to learn how to do these images. Looking on YouTube, I found many examples of how to do the procedure in Adobe Photoshop. My problem is that I don’t use Photoshop. My usual editor is Adobe Lightroom, but I use Photoshop Elements for more complex editing. The step-by-step videos for creating the pop-outs in Photoshop didn’t work because the menu choices aren’t the same and some of the features of the larger program are missing.

As a result, it was quite an experiment to create my first pop-outs. I had to think about the concept and find the tools, all pretty similarly named in Photoshop Elements, but not necessarily in the same places. Fortunately the use of layer masks operates in a similar fashion in both programs so I was able to adapt that part of the process simply. The photo of the grave of Ira Hayes above is the first photo that I converted. Its straight-forward and simple lines made the learning process easier.

The gallery of images below features some of my favorite 3D pop-out images. For awhile, I posted one of these images on “3-D Thursday.” Not all subjects lend themselves to the process which really requires one central element to pop out of the background. I submit for your review a small gallery of my favorite experiments in 3-D pop-out photographs. In most browsers, click on an image to enlarge it and to scroll through the gallery.

Arizona Scene

Seattle’s iconic space needle

New Mexico’s Rail Runner commuter train

Lake Itasca, Minnesota

The grave of Ira Hayes

Arlington Cemetery

John Steiner