Sua Primeira Foto Estéreo com o StereoPhoto Maker (PT-BR)

Este é o tutorial de estreia do StereoPhoto Maker (SPM) em português: do par de fotos bruto à sua primeira imagem 3D alinhada e salva. O SPM é o freeware de Masuji Suto para fotos estereoscópicas. Se ainda não tem o programa, baixe a v6.41 na página de download em português — é portátil: descompacte e execute, sem instalar nada.

O que você precisa

• Duas fotos da mesma cena, tiradas de pontos alguns centímetros distantes um do outro (a distância entre os olhos é uma boa referência). Uma câmera estéreo grava isso como arquivo MPO; com uma câmera só, use o método “cha-cha” (deslocar e fotografar de novo).
• Um assunto parado. Qualquer coisa que se mexa entre as duas fotos — pessoas andando, folhas ao vento — atrapalha o alinhamento.
• O SPM descompactado, com a DLL spphotolib na mesma pasta do executável. A versão “Pro” é a de 64 bits; “Pro” é só o nome dessa versão, não uma edição paga.

Passo 1: abrir o par

Abra as imagens esquerda e direita (File > Open Left/Right Images) ou abra direto um arquivo MPO, que o SPM separa nas duas vistas. Se a cena parecer “afundar” em vez de saltar da tela, troque esquerda e direita com o comando de troca (swap): o par está invertido.

Passo 2: alinhamento automático

Rode o alinhamento automático (Adjust > Auto Alignment). O SPM corrige os erros que todo par feito à mão tem: deslocamento vertical, rotação, diferença de tamanho e distorção trapezoidal. Para pastas inteiras de pares, a ferramenta complementar StereoAutoAlign faz o mesmo em lote.

Passo 3: ajustar a janela estéreo

A janela estéreo é a “moldura” virtual atrás da qual a cena fica. Desloque o par na horizontal até que o objeto mais próximo fique sobre a janela ou logo atrás dela. Objeto próximo cortado pela borda da moldura causa o desconfortável efeito de “violação de janela”.

Passo 4: salvar no formato certo

• Lado a lado (side-by-side) — o formato universal de trabalho e o arquivo-mestre que você deve guardar.
• Anaglifo — para óculos vermelho/ciano; veja o tutorial em inglês Make an anaglyph.
• MPO — para voltar a câmeras e aparelhos que leem esse formato.

Salve com File > Save Stereo Image. Guarde sempre o lado a lado como mestre: o anaglifo é uma cópia de visualização, não um arquivo de guarda.

Erros de principiante para pular

• Distância grande demais entre as fotos — exagera a profundidade e torna cenas próximas impossíveis de olhar. Comece perto da distância dos olhos.
• Mudar o zoom entre as fotos — vira diferença de tamanho que o alinhamento precisa compensar.
• Guardar só o anaglifo — dele não se recupera o par original com qualidade.

Continua em inglês: todos os tutoriais · alinhamento automático em detalhe.

Keep exploring

• Baixar o StereoPhoto Maker v6.41 (arquivos oficiais)
• StereoPhoto Maker em português — página inicial
• Todos os tutoriais (em inglês)
• Your first stereo photo (versão em inglês)

Depth Maps for Facebook 3D Photos: The SPM Workflow

Facebook’s 3D photo feature builds its parallax from two files: the photo and a matching depth map. StereoPhoto Maker connects to this in two ways — it prepares and aligns real stereo pairs, and since v6.41 it can extract depth maps from iPhone HEIC portrait photos that carry depth data. This workflow uses both.

Route A: from an iPhone portrait (photo + its own depth map)

1. Take the portrait-mode shot and transfer the original HEIC — converted copies lose the depth channel.
2. Extract the depth map in SPM v6.41 (step-by-step).
3. Keep the photo and depth map as a named pair (same base name).
4. Upload both together to Facebook’s 3D photo flow and check the result on a phone — tilt to verify the parallax reads naturally.

Route B: from a real stereo pair (depth from disparity)

Facebook also derives depth when you upload a stereo pair in its supported forms. Prepare the pair in SPM — aligned, window set, saved as a clean master (walkthrough) — because every geometry error becomes a wobble in the generated 3D effect. A true pair gives the feature real disparity to work with, which generally beats a single photo’s estimated depth around edges.

Quality checks before posting

• Hair, glasses and thin objects are where depth estimates fail — inspect at full size.
• If the effect swims at object edges, the depth map — not the photo — is the problem; a cleaner extraction or the stereo-pair route fixes it.
• Keep the originals: platform features change, and today’s upload pair is tomorrow’s re-export.

Keep exploring

• Download StereoPhoto Maker v6.41 (official files)
• All workflow guides
• Extract depth maps from iPhone HEIC portraits
• iPhone spatial photos (HEIC) in SPM
• Your first stereo photo with SPM

Side-by-Side for YouTube VR: What SPM Does (and What It Doesn’t)

YouTube accepts 3D uploads, and the practical input is a side-by-side video with the right projection metadata. StereoPhoto Maker is a stills program — it will not edit your video — but it is where the stereo discipline for those frames is learned and checked, and its sibling StereoMovie Maker is the author’s video tool. This guide draws the boundaries honestly and gives the export recipe.

Know which tool does what

• SPM — stills: verify pairs, test alignment and window decisions on extracted frames, build the channel’s stereo thumbnails and cards.
• Your video editor / StereoMovie Maker — the timeline, the render, and (for SMM) stereo video conversion.
• Metadata injection — YouTube recognises 3D from the file’s spherical/3D metadata; renders that lack it upload as flat SBS. The common route is exporting equirectangular for VR180/360, or full-frame SBS with the 3D metadata set by your editor or Google’s spatial media injector.

The geometry rules that carry over

• Align first — VR playback magnifies vertical error exactly as headsets do (Quest viewing rules).
• Moderate depth — YouTube VR audiences watch longer than a demo clip; comfort beats spectacle.
• For Canon dual-fisheye material, the fisheye⇄VR180 conversion lives in SPM (guide) — stills and frames today, same projection maths your video path uses.

Upload checklist

1. Render in the projection your metadata declares (VR180 equirectangular, or SBS as appropriate).
2. Verify in the YouTube app on a headset before announcing the link — the desktop preview lies about 3D.
3. Keep the SBS master file; platforms change their ingest rules, masters do not change.

Keep exploring

• Download StereoPhoto Maker v6.41 (official files)
• All workflow guides
• Canon VR180 conversion
• Viewing SPM output on Meta Quest
• SPM vs StereoMovie Maker

Back Up Your MPO Library: A Routine for Irreplaceable Stereo Originals

Stereo originals are unusually fragile data. A stereo pair is two files pretending to be one; an MPO is one file a careless “optimiser” can flatten into a single 2D JPEG. Fujifilm W3s and 3DS consoles are long out of production — their originals are irreplaceable by definition. This is a backup routine sized for a hobby library, not an enterprise.

The routine

1. Ingest untouched. Copy camera cards to an “Originals” folder organised by date/device. Nothing edits these files, ever.
2. Two copies, different media. One on your working drive, one on an external drive or a cloud library. Different buildings beats same desk.
3. Derivatives live separately. SPM masters (aligned SBS) and exports go in their own folders, so a bad batch can never overwrite an original.
4. Verify yearly. Open a sample from each year; storage fails silently, and finding out during a restore is too late.

Stereo-specific traps

• Cloud “optimisation” — photo services that recompress or strip “extra” data can destroy an MPO’s second view or an HEIC’s depth. Test any new service with one file before trusting it with the library.
• Renaming sprees — left/right pairs keyed by filename break when renamed carelessly; rename pairs together, or use MPO containers.
• Metadata loss in processing — batch paths can strip EXIF (the ExifTool method); originals keep what derivatives lose, which is the point of keeping them.

What “backed up” means

If your house drive and your only copy die in the same week and the library survives, it was backed up. Everything else is just stored. For a library gathered over years of stereo shooting, one cloud copy plus one external drive is a proportionate answer.

Keep exploring

• Download StereoPhoto Maker v6.41 (official files)
• All workflow guides
• Fujifilm W3 workflow
• Nintendo 3DS MPO files in SPM
• EXIF data lost after saving

Print Stereo Cards at Home: Paper, Mounting & Viewing

Printing your own stereo cards closes the loop that SPM’s Stereo Card Maker opens: digital pair in, physical card out, straight into a stereoscope. This guide covers the practical choices — paper, printer route, mounting — that decide whether the result feels like a card or a printout.

Prepare the file in SPM

1. Align and window the pair with print in mind: no post-print adjustments exist.
2. Lay out the card in the Stereo Card Maker — a preset format, or a custom size (supported since v6.27) matched to your paper and viewer.
3. Export at the printer’s native quality; borders and rounded corners are part of the layout, not an afterthought.

Paper and printing routes

• Home inkjet on matte photo paper — the forgiving starter route; matte surfaces avoid the reflections that fight stereoscope viewing.
• Lab prints — order the card layout as one print in a standard size and trim; colour consistency beats home output.
• Card stock mounting — for the true vintage feel, mount the print on grey/brown card with a low-tack spray or photo corners; the classic cards were lithographs on exactly such stock.

Viewing and storing

A traditional stereoscope matches the classic card dimensions; handheld lorgnette viewers suit smaller cards. Store finished cards upright, sleeved if they matter — they are prints, with a print’s enemies (light, humidity, fingers).

Keep exploring

• Download StereoPhoto Maker v6.41 (official files)
• All workflow guides
• Stereo cards for printing (SPM tutorial)
• Scan & restore vintage stereo cards
• The cha-cha method

Scan & Restore Vintage Stereo Cards (Then Remount Them in SPM)

Vintage stereo cards — the twin prints on card stock that parlours viewed through stereoscopes for a century — are fragile, foxed, faded and frequently wonderful. This workflow digitises them properly: scan once, restore honestly, and mount them digitally in StereoPhoto Maker so they can be viewed, printed and shared like new pairs.

1. Scan the whole card, flat

• Scan the entire card including borders at a resolution that survives cropping — the borders carry the caption and dating evidence, which are part of the artefact.
• Keep the card flat and square to the scanner; a skewed scan bakes in rotation error.
• Save the untouched scan as your archival master before any editing.

2. Split and clean each view

Work on copies. Crop the left and right views, then do the conservative repairs: dust and spot removal, gentle level correction for fading. Resist the urge to “improve” the scene — restoration ethics for heritage material means repairing damage, not revising history. Heavy damage (tears across faces, silver mirroring) is where AI restoration earns a test on a copy, never on the master.

3. Align and mount in SPM

1. Open the two views as a pair in SPM and run auto alignment — century-old mounting was good, but card warp and scanning add their own errors.
2. Set the stereo window as the original publisher would have: subject at the card.
3. Save the SBS master; use the Stereo Card Maker to produce a faithful modern reprint card if you want the object back in a viewer.

4. Share with context

Publish the restored pair with its caption, photographer/publisher and approximate date when known. A stereo card’s metadata is half its value; a bare image is a halved artefact.

Keep exploring

• Download StereoPhoto Maker v6.41 (official files)
• All workflow guides
• Stereo cards for printing
• Print stereo cards at home
• Back up your MPO library

The Cha-Cha Method: One Camera, Two Shots, Real Stereo

Cha-cha is the poor stereographer’s rig: one camera, two shots — shoot, shift your weight sideways, shoot again. Named for the little dance, it costs nothing and works anywhere, within limits this guide states plainly. StereoPhoto Maker does the finishing.

The technique

1. Frame the shot and note a foreground anchor at the frame edge.
2. Take the left photo.
3. Shift the camera sideways — roughly eye spacing for near subjects, more for distant ones — keeping it level and at the same height. Rocking sideways from the hips (the cha-cha) keeps height constant better than stepping.
4. Take the right photo, reframing on the same anchor.

Rules that decide success

• Nothing may move. People, animals, water, foliage in wind, clouds crossing the sun — any change between shots becomes a stereo defect no alignment pass can remove. Cha-cha is for still life, architecture and calm landscapes.
• Level and height are everything. Vertical error is the one your eyes cannot forgive (eye strain guide). A grid overlay or bubble level earns its keep here.
• Fixed settings. Same focal length, focus and exposure for both shots — switch to manual if the camera wants to help.

Finishing in SPM

Open the pair, run auto alignment, set the window, and save. Cha-cha pairs typically need slightly larger corrections than rig pairs; if the report shows big rotation or size fixes, treat it as technique feedback for next time. Wiggle GIFs are a natural cha-cha output — see the wiggle GIF tutorial.

Cha-cha versus a rig is not a quality contest: the rig exists because cha-cha’s one rule — nothing moves — excludes most living subjects. Use each where it works.

Keep exploring

• Download StereoPhoto Maker v6.41 (official files)
• All workflow guides
• Build a twin-camera rig
• Your first stereo photo with SPM
• Make a wiggle GIF

Build a Twin-Camera Stereo Rig (and Finish the Pairs in SPM)

A twin-camera rig is two cameras mounted side by side, fired together — the classic way to shoot stereo of anything that moves. StereoPhoto Maker is where the pairs end up, but the quality of the final image is decided on the bar, in the geometry you build. This workflow covers setup through SPM finishing.

Geometry first

• Parallel axes, not toe-in. Converging the cameras creates keystone distortion that alignment must then fight. Mount both cameras pointing straight ahead and let the stereo window do the framing in SPM.
• Baseline = subject-dependent. Around eye spacing (≈65 mm) for people and rooms; wider for landscapes, narrower for close subjects. Too wide is the classic beginner error — depth becomes unviewable, not dramatic.
• Matched height and level. A millimetre of height difference is vertical misalignment in every frame. Shim, level, lock.

Sync: the honest options

• Simultaneous release cables / IR — two shutters fired by one control; good enough for most scenes.
• Firmware solutions — some camera families support linked operation or precision sync accessories; check your models.
• “Close enough” hand sync — pressing both releases together works for static subjects and fails exactly when motion matters. Know which game you are playing.

Camera settings discipline

Lock everything the pair shares: focal length (same zoom position, taped if necessary), focus distance, exposure mode and white balance. Any difference between the two frames becomes work — or waste — in post.

Finishing in SPM

1. Copy both cards; pair the frames by timestamp/filename and keep originals untouched.
2. Run auto alignment (or StereoAutoAlign over the folder) and inspect the corrections — big recurring corrections mean the rig needs adjustment, not the software.
3. Set the window, save SBS masters, export viewing copies (Quest, anaglyph, print).

Keep exploring

• Download StereoPhoto Maker v6.41 (official files)
• All workflow guides
• Auto alignment & StereoAutoAlign
• The cha-cha method
• Vertical misalignment & eye strain

Best Stereo Photo Software: The Short, Honest List

Most “best stereo software” lists are padded with abandoned downloads and general photo editors that cannot align a pair. This one is short, because the honest field is short: a handful of maintained stereo specialists, plus the general editors that support them. Every claim here is about what a tool is for — try any of them and check us.

The stereo specialists

StereoPhoto Maker (SPM) — the default workbench

Freeware (Windows; official Wine bundle for Mac), actively maintained — v6.41 shipped in July 2026. Auto alignment plus the StereoAutoAlign batch companion, MPO/JPS/PNS containers, anaglyph systems with gamma correction, Stereo Card Maker, Canon VR180 conversion, Apple spatial HEIC input, and device imports for Lume Pad/Nubia/RED pairs. If you shoot real stereo pairs, start here: download page.

COSIMA — correction-first veteran

A long-running stereo correction program favoured for automatic mounting of twin-rig pairs. See SPM vs COSIMA.

AnaBuilder — the cross-platform builder

Java-based, so it runs where SPM cannot natively go. See SPM vs AnaBuilder.

3DCombine — the commercial option

Paid stills+video with depth-map conversion features. See SPM vs 3DCombine.

The supporting bench (not stereo tools, still useful)

• RAW development — SPM consumes finished frames; develop Canon/Nikon/Sony raws first. DxO’s RAW tools are the enthusiast favourite for lens-corrected output.
• Restoration & upscaling — for scanned vintage stereo cards, AI restoration (Topaz) repairs damage no alignment tool touches; workflow in scan & restore.
• Retouching — Photoshop-class editors for per-frame work before SPM; see the honest split.

What did not make the list, and why

General photo editors (no stereo alignment), online “3D converters” that upload your photos to unknown servers for a watermark, and any tool whose last update predates the formats in your camera bag. Stereo is a small field; maintained beats famous.

Keep exploring

• Download StereoPhoto Maker v6.41 (official files)
• All comparisons
• SPM vs COSIMA
• SPM vs Photoshop for stereo pairs
• SPM vs 3DCombine

StereoPhoto Maker vs StereoMovie Maker: Siblings, Not Rivals

This comparison is a family matter: StereoMovie Maker (SMM) is Masuji Suto’s other program, the video sibling of StereoPhoto Maker. They are not competitors — they are the stills and motion halves of one author’s toolbox, and the only real question is which side of the line your material sits on.

The dividing line

• StereoPhoto Maker — still images: pairs, MPO photos, anaglyphs, stereo cards, batch conversion of image folders.
• StereoMovie Maker — stereo video: movie files shot as stereo, with the editing and conversion tasks moving images need.

Both are freeware from the same author and the same site, stereo.jpn.org, and both follow the same philosophy: small, single-purpose, no ceremony. Skills transfer — if you understand alignment and the stereo window in SPM, SMM’s equivalents feel familiar, because the geometry problems are the same whether the pair is a frame or a film.

Which do you download?

Photos (including frames you intend to treat as photos): SPM, from our download page. Movies: SMM from the author’s site. Many stereo shooters keep both installed, exactly as the author’s site presents them — as a pair.

Be wary of third-party pages that merge the two programs into one “suite” download. The author distributes them separately, as freeware, from stereo.jpn.org.

Keep exploring

• Download StereoPhoto Maker v6.41 (official files)
• All comparisons
• Best stereo photo software
• Side-by-side for YouTube VR
• SPM vs 3DCombine