Note: This technique creates not merely a 3D-like globe, but an actual stereoscopic image when viewed with 3D red and blue glasses.

Using surface textures from NASA and a bump map from another online source, I created a fully rotatable, 3D globe of the Earth in Photoshop CS4 Extended. It can be viewed or lighted from any direction. There is also a separate cloud layer I can turn on, edit, and move around. My master file is a very large image (6000 × 6000 pixels), more than ample to fill a full spread at 300 ppi.

Photoshop CS4 also has built-in features for creating red-blue anaglyph images. Below are a couple sample images I made. You will need a set of red-blue 3D glasses to view them correctly (you can also make your own glasses, using markers or red and blue transparencies you may have — or request a free pair (alternate link)).

This is the second version I made, with clouds added:

The 3D features in Photoshop CS4 Extended are a little tricky to learn, but once you get the hang of them, you can do some pretty amazing stuff.