Things that have been taking up my time of late: Farmville, Typing Maniac, experimenting with a new WordPress site for LWF, finishing up a couple of web design projects, hanging out with Basil, and .. Farmville… again. I’m boycotting Farmville. That’s a lie. I tried to boycott Farmville but could only stay away for a week. Something sad about seeing all those crops wilting in virtual-world. I’m shocked to see how much time has passed since my last post, I really need to stay away from all that is a time-suck. Except for Mad Men.

So onto this post. I’ve been talking awhile about picking up a Lomo camera, which is basically a very simple, plastic, toy-like analog camera that takes amazing unpredictable pictures.

Lomographic cameras are based on the original Lomo Compact Automat (LC-A), which was an inexpensive, plastic camera created in Russia in the early 80’s. The cheap design turned out to be it’s best feature because instead of creating perfect pictures, this camera produced these quirky, colorful, vignetted, artistic images. There exists whole discussions about whether these cameras create art or cheap photography but I have to admit that I’m a fan. I’ve been lazy to research and finally purchase one, although I’m sure when I stop playing Farmville for 5 minutes and commit some of my “personal fund” to this venture, I can make this happen.

In the meantime, I’ve found this fun how-to article that gives a step-by-step walk-through on creating your own Lomo effects in Photoshop. (Also hotly debated as to whether the results come close to what is created using the real thing – but I’m just having fun here.)

My Experiment: (before and after)

Directions in a Nutshell: (and because I work better with lists)

1. Create a freehand lasso of a circle around the photo, setting the feather to 80-90px

2. Invert the selection (Select>Inverse)

3. Add a Levels layer (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Levels)

4. Adjust the levels by moving the center arrow to the right. This darkens the edges, producing a vignette.

5. Layer>Merge Layers

6. Add a curves layer and create a slanted S. (Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Curves) Grab and gently pull points on the line until the line creates a slanted S.

7. Create a new layer and fill the new layer with solid Black. Change the blending mode to Hue and reduce the opacity to 40%

8. Merge layers.

9. Sharpen the image.
Image>Mode>Lab Color
Select the channel window and click on the Lightness channel.
Go to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask
Set the Amount to 50% and play around with the Radius until you get the desired amount of sharpness. Leave Threshold to 0.

10. Go to Image>Mode>RGB Color

11. Save