Why stereo footage needs special editing
Ordinary photo and video editors treat an image as a single flat file. Stereo content is two images that must stay perfectly aligned, or the viewer's brain fights to fuse them and gets eye strain instead of depth.
What good stereo editing software actually does
- Vertical and rotational alignment correction between the two eye views
- Convergence adjustment — shifting where the 'zero parallax' point sits in the scene
- Interaxial distance tweaks after the fact, within limits
- Export presets for SBS, VR180, MPO and spatial video containers
Free and low-cost options
StereoPhoto Maker remains a go-to free tool for aligning and exporting still stereo pairs. For video, several NLE plugins add stereo-aware timelines on top of editors people already use.
Professional pipelines
Dedicated stereoscopic post houses use specialized convergence and color-matching tools built for feature film work, where perfect depth continuity across thousands of shots is the job.
See it in action at 3dstreaming.org