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Give Your Photos a Vintage Appearance
Posted by Lifehacker US Edition at 1:00 AM on September 15, 2008
Many people adore the look of photographs taken with older cameras. The millions of plastic bodied cheap lens bearing cameras that flooded the consumer photography market starting around the mid-20th century had flaws that have come to be a hallmark of their time. The dark vignettes, over saturated colours, and often blown highlights have a certain undeniably flawed appeal to many. Why scrounge the flea markets looking for a camera or waste the money on trendy new (but just as poorly constructed) expensive knockoffs?
Frank Lazaro, a member of the Digital Photography School community, has put together a fantastic tutorial on taking your digital photographs and giving them the vintage feel of older photos. He uses Photoshop and the tutorial and steps are geared towards Photoshop users, but none of the steps are extremely specific to using Photoshop. The effects could easily be recreated with a bit of tweaking to the process in another photo editing program like GIMP. If you're in the mood to tinker with some of your photos but aren't interested in being really hands on with the process check out previously reviewed Wanokoto, a web based image editor that helps you create vintage effects.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
battra92
Posted 1:45 AM 15/9/08
@aj.hidell: Exactly. Lomo Photography is not a science. It's like cross processing in that a lot is left to chance. Honestly, this is the exact opposite of what Lomo photography is about.
battra92
aj.hidell
Posted 1:37 AM 15/9/08
Want a creative, artistic, vintage look to your photos? Buy a Holga and snap to your heart's content!
aj.hidell
mados123
Posted 1:57 AM 15/9/08
While I agree that this is against the philosophy of Lomo (or Holga), the instructions on how to modify your pictures are useful for those who 1) don't or will not have a Lomo and 2) won't have a chance to have their past pictures taken again with a Lomo. Maybe they will add this feature in Google's Picasa!
mados123
Ethan Halko!
Posted 2:25 AM 15/9/08
@aj.hidell:
If you actually read the post you would know that this is for people who have more dignity than to spend $100 on 3 cents worth of plastic.
I made a lomo pinhole out of paper and it only cost me the price of film. But I have a problem with this whole "bad is good" trend.
Ethan Halko!
Avolition
Posted 2:22 AM 15/9/08
or you could cross process, assuming anyone wants to use film =[ <3 film photography
Avolition
jmoorse
Posted 2:42 AM 15/9/08
$100 on 3 cents of plastic? Photoshop costs more than $100! ;)
But seriously, why not try the lomo-gimp plugin?
[lomo-gimp.berlios.de]
jmoorse
FotoVerite
Posted 3:22 AM 15/9/08
A holga is like 30 bucks. Yes you are paying a premium for the camera, but these days who makes film camera's period. The whole point of lomo is that's its lomo from the start. No manipulation, no photoshop.
FotoVerite
Ethan Halko!
Posted 3:16 AM 15/9/08
@jmoorse:
Very true.. but photoshop does more than make bad photos look worse haha.
Ethan Halko!
endon
Posted 8:40 AM 15/9/08
It also includes the other philosophies of lomo, like shooting from the hip. I have to say that whilst the Holga is brilliant, do not go near the other lomo cameras, like the coloursplash, because they really are poorly made hunks of plastic!
endon
ChainsawFacelift
Posted 9:08 AM 15/9/08
Nice find, I love little tool like this, it's what I come to Lifehacker for.
ChainsawFacelift
TheMelange
Posted 1:34 PM 15/9/08
This post is pretty off. The Lomo look is not a "vintage" look. People still use Lomo cameras, and a lot of older cameras offer much more image control than a Lomo.
And aj.hidell is right. Lomos are not about control. They are about randomness.
TheMelange
Chef
Posted 3:27 PM 15/9/08
If the Lomo philosophy is randomness, why limit yourself to Lomo cameras? Ironically, I was able to get some photos a very "Lomo" feel with my DSLR when I was taking photos in a lounge bar by using slow/rear flash; photos had a bright, hot color background with hazy preimages of people, but clear images of them from the post-flash. More than that, I didn't set up the shots - I just took a bunch of photos, camera in hand, moving it around, experimenting.
I actually kind of like some camera flaws/quirks because they allow me to exploit them for experiments - phone cameras often have the scan method of taking photos, like the iPhone distorted photo post Lifehacker had earlier.
Really, just take any camera and experiment: That's what the real Lomo photographer philosophy is, and not "go buy a Lomo camera and look at the random that comes out!" I still like digital because digital means you never really waste anything trying new things, so just try something.
Chef
battra92
Posted 9:56 PM 15/9/08
@Chef: I still like digital because digital means you never really waste anything trying new things, so just try something.
I tried a DSLR for two days and found it to be the biggest waste in and of itself. I sent it back for a refund.
Give me my old Nikon with some Kodachrome. Learning from your mistakes is never a waste.
battra92
muteboy
Posted 5:59 AM 16/9/08
Philosophies of Lomo? Buy a trademark, then threaten people who sell the cameras direct from the manufacturer, rather than buying it from Lomography for 5x the manufacture price.
[www.camerapedia.org]
[cameras.alfredklomp.com]
Intimidating letter: [www.geocities.com]
muteboy
Chef
Posted 12:41 PM 16/9/08
@battra92: You don't have to buy a DSLR - any digital camera will do, cheap 3MP point 'n shoots included. Learning from your mistakes is never bad, but with film, you have to spend your way there, and you're much less likely to experiment.
Chef
battra92
Posted 9:51 PM 16/9/08
@Chef: Maybe for some. I was buying bulk film when I learned and rolled my own and developed it myself (or for color just selected develop only at the lab for like $1) but then that was a few years ago I learned. Funny thing is I started getting serious when I bought my first digital back in 02 but after I got a film SLR I really started to have more fun.
Of course once I got into Medium Format and especially folding cameras did I really learn something.
battra92
BiZarRroBALlmeR
Posted 1:50 AM 21/9/08
Forgetting about the Lomo effect, the photo on the right is much more interesting than the original.
BiZarRroBALlmeR