![]() ![]() You can also order customised reel and sleeve graphics – ideal for commercial giveaways and promotions and product launches – more information here: Customised reel graphics Please read this page before uploading unsuitable images! Retro-view-reels You might find this Photoshop template handy for image preparation: Retro-View template DPI doesn’t matter, set whatever you like but don’t change the 1240×1125 pixel values. If you are a Photoshop wizard then you can prepare your images to the correct size: 1240px wide x 1125px high. Please number your photos from 1 to 7, in the order you want them viewed, so that we can prepare the reels in the correct order. The final images on these reels are very small – just 11.5mm x 10mm – and work best with bold and colourful photos. The format of viewer images is landscape only, upright images won’t work unless severely cropped. We will need seven images (or seven stereo pairs) to make up one reel. We can't wait to see what's next.You can supply 2D or 3D images for this View-Master compatible reel, although of course only 3D images view as 3D in a view-master viewer – ordinary 2D photos look great though. Luckily for us it would continue with its range of animated character slide sets, though. ![]() The View-Masters are still popular today, although in 2008 Fisher Price announced it would cease producing slides of tourist attractions. It's so famous in fact, that the toy has appeared in the movies - in Dawn Of The Dead and Hot Shots! Part Deux to name but two. Since 1939, 25 variations of the View-Master have been rolled out, including a Talking View-Master and different-coloured designs, and 1.5 billion disks have been produced. Remember getting those red and green plastic glasses free with your weekly comic or copy of the TV Times? It's probably still stuck down the side of some peoples' sofas. The View-Master reached its peak of popularity in the early 80s when it went hand in hand with all the 3D programmes TV channels were clamouring to broadcast at that time. With a heavily slant towards tourism still remaining, spots such as Universal Studios, Marineland and the Detroit Zoo were also quick to produce disks. A maker of Super 8 film and slides, they were able to license to rights to dozens of films and TV shows over the next two decades. In 1966, a company called The General Aniline and Film Corporation (or GAF) purchased Sawyer’s invention. Soon, kids everywhere were begging for a View-Master. This deal included the rights to their Stereochrome viewers and, more importantly, Disney characters. Then, in 1951, Sawyer acquired the Tru-Vu stereo Film Company. They purchased a staggering 10,000 View-Masters and over six million reels. When America went to war in the early 40s, the military took interest in the devices as a cheap way to train troops. A year later, they set out to create their first prototype of the red wonder we all know and love. When Gruber crossed paths with a tourist named Harold Graves during a visit to the Oregon Caves National Monument, this idea turned into an actuality. In 1939, he envisioned a contraption that could take a slide, consisting of two overlapping images, that when looked at through two eyepieces would present a three-dimensional picture. The responsibility for this - well, the View-Master in general - lies with aphotography buff named William Gruber. It was wonderful, apart from when the unreliable trigger mechanism resulted in the frames not quite aligning. Each frame also featured a line of text to give a bit more depth to the stories. There were all kinds of discs produced for the View-Master - from educational wildlife sets, The Seven Wonders Of The World and even a 25-volume anatomy of the human body, through to tales of Popeye and Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Man From U.N.C.L.E, Here's lucy and The Beverly Hillbillies. Basically, the View-Master was a special kind of slide viewer - back when people took slides instead of photographs - which took circular slide discs with pictures of your favourite cartoons on them. It was our first foray into virtual reality, after all. Iconic in its design, everyone remembers the clunky red plastic GAF 'Model J' Viewer that had us all oohing and aahing. Ok, so not all kids had to resort to sweet wrappers back in the 80s - if they were very lucky, they had a View-Master! What are we talking about? The quest for 3D effects, that's what. Kids of the Noughties get their fix from a trip to the IMAX cinema kids of the 90s would crowd into a sick-inducing Simulater at the seaside and kids of the 80s held coloured sweetie wrappers against their eyes. ![]()
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