Pick up a coin and run your fingertip over its portrait or lettering. You can feel the design rising above the surrounding surface. Tilt it toward a light, and those small changes in height become easier to see.
That raised design is called relief. The U.S. Mint uses the term for the parts of a coin that project above its surface. Details pressed into the surface are called incuse.
A coin is a familiar example of how an image can have physical depth while remaining part of a thin object.
What makes something a relief?
In relief sculpture, the sculpted forms project from a supporting background. A face might have a raised nose and cheeks, while the surrounding surface sits farther back. The forms remain connected to that background.
This makes relief different from a freestanding sculpture. You can walk around a statue to see the back of its head. Turning over a portrait relief reveals its backing, rather than a fully sculpted rear view of the person.
How far does the design stick out?
Relief can be shallow or pronounced. Low relief, also called bas-relief, projects only slightly from its background. Getty uses the portrait of George Washington on an American quarter as an everyday example.
High relief extends farther toward the viewer. Some parts can project enough to appear almost detached from the background. A single artwork can combine shallow details with more strongly raised forms.
So there is no single depth that makes every relief “3D.” The term describes how the forms relate to their supporting surface.
Try a simple experiment with light
Place a coin under a desk lamp, then slowly tilt it. Watch the edge of the portrait and the raised lettering. As their angle to the light changes, highlights and shadows shift across them.
Now try the same thing with a photograph of that coin. The photograph contains the shadows captured when it was taken. The actual coin has a shaped surface that responds to the light in your room.
This is also a useful way to examine a larger relief. Looking from the side reveals its height changes; light coming from an angle can make those changes easier to notice.
From coin portraits to personal photographs
A custom photo relief uses raised forms to represent a subject from a photograph. The maker interprets the visible features and gives them physical depth. The finished piece can retain a frontal composition while adding contours you can see from an angle.
At 3D Heirloom, our custom reliefs have a raised front and a flat back. A side view helps show exactly how the face, hair, or clothing projects from the piece, so you can understand its shape before choosing a photo to personalize.
Color is only one clue: see how light and shape reveal hair, clothing, and expressions in a monochrome relief.
