My 2D to 3D Experiment

Following on from the excellent Premiumbeat.com article "Still Images: 2D to 3D using After Effects or Apple Motion" I thought I'd try my hand, as I often am on the scrounge for content and there is only so far Ken Burns will take you...

Being in possession of Photoshop and Motion I tried out Jonathan Fowler's approach but instead opted for Pixelmator as I've gotta get used to using it on the iMac.

Quick Mask Mode - A comfortable way to extract

Before using the Edit in Quick Mask Mode (Q) feature, I duplicated the layer twice, leaving me with three layers (follow Jonathans Instructions from the article above). I then erased the bits I didn't want of the fore, mid and background using the Quick Mask Mode. Once I had the layers I wanted, I Clone Stamp painted more of each of the layers, so I had some room to see behind the fore & mid sections - most noticeable on the greenery towards the LHS of the image and the roof of the car at the top.

Then I exported the whole image as a .psd compatible file and imported it into Motion. When importing Motion asked me if I wanted to merge the layers, but I kept them separate. Once I'd messed around with the length and positioned the image on screen, I added a camera as per Jonathans video, making the project 3D, then pulled the foreground and middle layers forwards, adding a little keyframed movement at the same time to give some variety to the image. I also toyed with a Pan effect on the camera so it swings round from left to right but as the layers are totally flat, it looked really messy.



Another great tutorial from Premiumbeat.com! I just hope I can get around the copyright music issue - more than happy to link to somewhere to sell the Tenacious D track?