A photo is flat. A crystal is not. The magic of a 3D photo crystal is that your picture seems to float in the middle of the glass, with a face that has real depth.
Step one: finding the subject
We separate the people, pets or objects you care about from the background, so only they are engraved. If you prefer to keep the background, there is a switch for that in the preview.
Step two: measuring depth
Software estimates how far each part of the picture is from the camera: a nose is closer than an ear, an ear is closer than the shoulder behind it. That gives every point of the picture its own place between the front and back of the crystal.
Step three: a cloud of tiny points
The picture is turned into thousands of tiny points of light, bright where the photo is bright and sparse where it is dark. Looking at the crystal from the front, your eyes join the points into a picture; turn it and the depth shows.
Why the preview matters
You can rotate the live preview and check the depth before ordering. Learn what happens next on the page about how we engrave.