Inverse depth perception in photos

[Iris]

Does anyone else suffer from chronic inverse depth perception when looking at photos of the moon, planets etc

(i.e. instead of seeing craters you see them as a flat mound/pancake and mounds are seen as ditches...)

Almost without fail I seem to get the darn thing and it can be a devil to shake off.

If you do - do you have any tricks you use to flip to normal view?

[tinvek]

i get this on some moon pics, usually the ones with little or no shadows, i found that if i perform a sweeping motion up the image with my hand and concentrate on the image as it appears from underneath it seems to give the brain a chance to sort things out.

it's a strange effect isn't it and makes the moon look very unusual

[steppenwolf]

I often suffer from this and call it 'Windows Syndrone' - we are so used to seeing artificial depth on our computers generated by boxes with shadows at top and left and bright edges at right and bottom. Lunar images that don't fit this model can often 'invert' to some viewers. Turning the image round 90 to 180 degrees can make the image revert to the right view.

[Talitha]

I've only experienced it once or twice, but yes, you're right... it can be disturbing to see an 'outie' when you know you should be seeing an 'innie'.

I know someone who sees it at the eyepiece all the time while lunar observing and he can't seem to shake it off no matter what he does. Maybe it has something to do with the way our individual brains are wired?

[mint_mark]

In the past I have done a lot of coin photography and the same effect happens there... you lose track of which parts of the design are in relief and which are incuse.

I think it is purely because we are very used to seeing things illuminated from above... and when you consider the sun, us and the earth it seems to make sense