PhotoshopTutorial : Create Lomo Style Photographs

Accidents such as over-saturated colors, lens artifacts, and exposure defects are just some of the wierd and wonderful effects acheived using a Lomo camera.

What's Lomo?

"In 1991 a group of Viennese students discovered the Lomo Kompakt Automat when on holiday in Prague. This mass-produced Soviet camera was so cheap and easy to use that they shot rolls of film, ignoring the established rules of "good" photography. The resulting snaps were often odd to look at, out of focus and, due to the character of the Lomo lens, garishly coloured. But they were wonderfully fresh."

- From the BBC 4 website


In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to create an image in Photoshop that looks like it was taken using a Lomo camera.

1. Open the photograph that you are going to work with. We’re going to start by making a vignette.

2. Select either the Elliptical Marquee tool (), or the Lasso tool (). In the tool options bar, set the feather to 90 pixels.

3. Draw a circle around the photograph.

4. Now that you’ve made a selection, you’re going to invert it. Do this by choosing Select > Inverse or pressing Shift+Ctrl+I (Windows) or Shift+Cmd+I (Mac).

5. Add a new adjustment layer by clicking on the “New Adjustment Layer” button on the bottom of the Layers palette. Choose Levels from the pop-up menu.

6. Drag the left arrow (representing the dark pixels) towards the centre of the histogram. You will see that the selected are becomes very dark, producing a vignette. How dark you want to go is up to you, so you can try out various settings, but there should be a definite dark edge around your photograph.

That’s the vignette created.

Now you’re going to fake the effect of cross processing. Lomo pictures tend to look bright, blurred and extremely colourful. Like an old TV that’s starting to go on the blink.

7. Flatten the image by pressing Shift+Ctrl+E (Windows) or Shift+Cmd+E (Mac), or choose Layer > Merge Layers.

8. Add another adjustment layer, this time choose Curves from the pop-up menu.

9. In the Curves dialog box, add two points and create a slanted S shape, as illustrated.

10. Add a new layer (just a normal layer this time) on top of the Curves adjustment layer and fill the new layer with solid black.

11. In the Layers palette, make sure the new Black layer is selected and change the blending mode from Normal to Hue. Reduce the opacity to around 40%.

And that completes your “Lomo-like” photograph.

Optional Step:

At this point, you could, if you want, sharpen the image using Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Lomo photographs tend to be blurry – that’s part of their charm – so I’m just leaving my image alone at this point.

Other examples:

Before	After

Photoshop Tutorial : Fake InfraRed !

In this tutorial, you'll see how to use the Channel Mixer, Gaussian Blur and Film Grain in Photoshop to create the impression of an photograph which has been taken using a camera with an infrared filter.

The effect works really well and can completely change the look of a photograph.

1. Open the photograph that you want to work with.

2. Make a duplicate of the background layer (in the layers palette drag "background" over the new layer icon at the bottom of the palette next to the trash can).

3. Select the new duplicate layer and rename it “Infrared” by double clicking on the layer name.

4. Create a new Channel Mixer adjustment layer by clicking on the New Adjustment Layer button at the bottom of the layers palette. Choose "Channel Mixer" from the pop-up menu.

5. The Channel Mixer dialog box will open.

6. Make sure the “Preview” option is checked so you can see how your photo will change. Then check the "Monochrome" option on the bottom left of the dialog box. (Leave it unchecked for a bizarre color effect.)

7. Set Red = + 100%, Green = + 200% and Blue = - 200%

8. Use the slider on the Constant option to reduce the brightness. I set this picture -10%.

9. Click OK. Your image will now start to have a hint of infrared about it.

10. Merge all the visible layers by choosing Layer > Merge Visible.

11. Create another duplicate layer on top of the existing layer.

12. On the document window, click on the corner of the window and drag out until there is at least one inch of gray showing all around your image window.

13. With the topmost duplicate layer selected press Ctrl + T to Free Transform the layer. With the Shift key held down, drag out each of the corner adjustment handles until the image expands out equally into the gray area by about 1/4 to ½ an inch. Hit Enter on the keyboard to apply the transformation.

14. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and move the slider up to around 4.5 and clickOK.

15. On the layers palette go to the layers tab and change the blending mode from normal to Screen. Now adjust the opacity slider down to approximately 50%, or what ever suits your image best.

At this point you should have a nice glow or halo around parts of the image.

16. Choose Filter > Artistic > Film Grain. Drag the slider to between 4 and 6 to add a visible level of graininess to the photograph. Click OK to exit the Filter dialog box.

Your image is now complete and you will have achieved a good if not perfect impression of a photograph taken using an Infrared filter.

Other examples: The beautiful west coast of Ireland.

The Ha'penny Bridge, Dublin

Illustrator: Quick Tip - Gaps & Live Paint

When you create an illustration in Illustrator CS2, you will find that not every path will line up perfectly and you will see gaps. If you want to fill in a region with colour, these sort of gaps can sometimes cause problems and you end up with a blue face when you were actually just trying to fill in an eye colour. To get over this, with a Live Paint group selected, you can choose Object > Live Paint > Gap Options to specify that gaps of a certain size (which you define- small, medium, large or custom size) will close filled areas.

Photoshop Tutorial : Make a Text Clipping Mask

Here's a new tutorial - all about how to use text as a clipping mask in Photoshop. Many people avoid clipping masks because there is a perception that they are difficult or that you need to be some kind of Photoshop master to use them. As you'll see in this tutorial there is nothing to be afraid of, they are straightforward and produce great effects.



To briefly explain what's happening here: You can use the content of one layer to mask the layers above it. The transparent pixels of the bottom or base layer mask the content of layers above it that are part of a clipping mask. The content of the base layer clips or reveals, the content of the layers above it in the clipping mask. It's like looking through a stencil.

1. Open an image in Photoshop. I’m using a snowy scene, but you can use a picture of anything at all.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Select the Horizontal Type Tool and in the tool options bar at the top of the screen, choose a font (heavy, solid fonts work best for clipping), and a fairly large font size.
   
   
   
   
   (I used the following settings: Font Family – pussycat, Size 250, Text aligned Centre and Anti-aliasing set to Strong. )
   
   


3. Click on the image in the document window and type some text.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Use the Move Tool, to centre the word in the middle of the image or over an area of interest in the image.
   
   
   
5. Click on the background layer in the Layers Palette to select it and then click on the Create A New Layer button.
   
   
   
   
   
   A new empty layer will appear in the Layers Palette.
   
   
   
6. Using the Paint Bucket tool, fill the new layer with white.
   
   

You now need to rearrange the stacking order of the layers to create your clipping mask. If your image has a ”background” layer, it will probably be locked.

1. Double-click anywhere on the background layer to open up the New Layer dialog box. Rename the layer and click OK.
   
   
   
   
   


2. Click on the layer you have just renamed in the Layers Palette and drag it to the top of the layers so it is hiding the words you’ve typed.
   
   
   
   
   


3. With the topmost layer selected, click on the Layers Palette menu (the little triangle in the upper right corner) and choose Create Clipping Mask.
   
   
   
   
   The clipping mask, kicks into action and you will see the letters forming the word Snowfall are filled with the image of the snowy trees.
   
   
   
   

Adding A Drop Shadow


To complete this image add a drop shadow to the text. It adds a little extra impact!

1. Select the type layer to make it active, and then click the Add a Layer Style button () at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Drop Shadow from the pop-up menu.
   
   
   
   
   


2. In the Layer Style dialog box, change the Opacity to 100%, the angle to 180 and the distance, spread and size to 3 (or choose whatever options you like best).
   
   
   
   
   The final image should look something like this: