A carrier method for separating out-of-plane displacement from in-plane components based on large image-shearing shearography is presented. A reference surface is fixed on the side of a test object. They are illuminated by two expanded symmetric illuminations respectively. The carrier is introduced by rotating the reference surface to modulate the displacement of an object. By using Fourier transform to demodulate the modulated fringe pattern, two phase maps, which include out-of-plane and in-plane displacements, can be obtained. Then the out-of-plane displacement can be easily separated from in-plane displacement by subtraction and addition of the two unwrapped phase distributions. The principle of the method is presented and proved by a typical three-point-bending experiment. Experimental results show that the method enjoys high visibility of carrier fringes. The system does not need a special beam as a reference light and has simple optical setup.