faking Lomo

henry joy – fake lomo
Originally uploaded by gilesbooth.

Okay I’ve almost got over the fact that my Lomo camera broke so quickly. Now I’ve realised I could have created similar photos rather more cheaply using a cruddy old Windows laptop and a copy of Photoshop Elements 2.0
You can download Fallout75′s PSD file which will even work in Photoshop Elements and allow you to do a pretty good fake Lomo picture, or you can try it manually.
Like most people suggest, I like to increase the saturation and contrast by about 20 – using adjustment layers is a good idea because that leaves your original photo in the bottom layer and it’s easy to tweak your settings later.
A bit of the cross-processed layer is essential – so make a ‘curves’ adjustment layer and click on the curve to make a gentle S shape.
But when it comes to making the edges dark, I prefer to use an elliptical rather than a rectangular marquee… I select the elliptical marquee tool, make the feather large (say 100 or 150 pixels), draw an ellipse that covers all but the corners, invert the selection, fill the corners with black in a new layer and change that new layer’s mode to ‘layer’.
There should also be some blurring round the edges as well I’d have thought. I’ll have to experiment with that some more and write up a proper guide of my own.