Lomo Effect

Lomography is a photographic style achieved via the use of a Lomo-type camera. Lomography is characterized by saturated colors, blurring, vignetting, and other artifacts. In addition, Lomo film is often cross processed resulting in interesting color shifts.

The lomo effect can also be created digitally. Here are the general steps I used to create the following image:

BEFORE

AFTER

1. Open original (RAW) image in Aperture and make minor adjustments
2. Open tweaked image in Photoshop Elements
3. Apply the cross-processing action from http://coffeeteaphotography.blogspot.com
4. Apply a high pass filter in overlay mode to add an over-sharpened effect
5. Adjust saturation in an adjustment layer
6. Add vignette by selecting an area with the elliptical marquee tool and filling with black

At this point, my lomo effect was essentially complete. I did, however, choose to add a bit of texture to complete the image.

lomography

Technorati Tags: lomography

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New Blog – Free Textures and Templates

Looking for Photoshop backgrounds and textures? Check out my new blog!

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Give your images a vintage newspaper look using Photoshop Elements

If you are looking for a way to liven up your images, check out the actions available (for free) over at Coffee Shop Photography. Here is an example of what you can accomplish with the Vintage News action:

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Oops! Another Reason to Shoot in RAW

As the volunteer bench coach, score keeper, and self-appointed photographer for my son’s little league team, I’m flirting with photographic disaster. Last week, I followed my usual routine – balancing camera on scorebook for 6 innings and shooting whenever possible. However, as I began to download the day’s images into my Aperture library, I quickly realized that sometime during the first inning I had inadvertently bumped the control dial on my 40D causing a switch from aperture priority to manual exposure. Almost all of the subsequent images were grossly overexposed. I know what you are thinking – I should have noticed this immediately while reviewing the images on the camera’s LCD…oops!

Rather than send the images to the digital graveyard, I decided to experiment with Aperture and Photoshop to see how much information could be salvaged. After adjusting the exposure and levels in Aperture, I used the Recovery and Highlight sliders to bring some detail back into the image. I then opened each image in Photoshop Elements (using Aperture’s roundtrip feature) and duplicated the background layer twice. The first duplicate layer was converted to black and white and the second duplicate layer was changed to either a Multiply, Color Burn, or Linear Burn blend mode. Here is an example of the results:

While this is not destined for the cover of SI, it does have an interesting pop art feel and it demonstrates the incredible amount of information that is stored in your RAW files.

RAW, Aperture, digital processing

Technorati Tags: RAW, Aperture, digital processing

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My Entry in Phill Price’s “Edit My Photo” Contest

Here is my (scifi themed) entry in Phill’s “Edit My Photo” contest. The contest ends on March 21, so there is still time to get your entry in!

Technorati Tags: photoshop, digital, moon, scifi

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