Lomography (Faked)

Image via Wikipedia

You may not be familiar with the term Lomography but if you like photography you will almost certainly be familiar with the look. The term comes from a Russian made 35 mm camera called the LOMO LC-A Compact Automat that by way of a "happy accident" produces very distinctive pictures that include such characteristics as over-saturated colours, off-kilter exposure, blurring, light leaks and vignette framing. The look of these pictures has a very large fan base and a website that is dedicated to the Lomo look has a massive following that is growing all the time. Take a look to see some great examples.

Like many others I thought it might be fun to try and re-create the effect by using Adobe Photoshop rather than buying a specific camera for the job. My technique is an amalgam of several I found on the web, you may wish to some research to find your own. I chose the photograph below that I took last June at the Seven Valley Railway. It seems to me that industrial mahinery suits the effect very well. I also think that the Lomo look evokes photography from the 50's, 60's and 70's and so an old subject matter seemed appropriate.

After first straightening the shot slightly, I began by creating a vignette by using the lasso tool to draw an oval frame around the engine. You don't need to be too accurate and it is worth setting the feather to around 80 or 90px to soften the edge. Next, invert the selection by choosing SELECT -- INVERSE. Now create a new levels layer by choosing LAYER -- NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER -- LEVELS. This will add a masked out layer on top of your original layer. Adjust the centre setting only, moving it to the right. In my example I went from 1.00 to 0.50 but experiment until you are happy. This gives the vignette, now we need to saturate the colours somewhat, but before we do we need to merge the layers by choosing LAYER -- FLATTEN IMAGE.

Create a new adjustment layer for curves. LAYER -- NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER -- CURVES. You need to adjust the curve until it makes a narrow slanted S shape. I had levels set to an Output of 205 and an Input of 177 but again experiment until you're happy. Now create a new layer on top of these two by choosing LAYER -- NEW -- LAYER. Select the bucket tool and paint the whole layer black. Don't panic! Set the opacity to around 40% and the blending mode to Hue. Finally flatten the layers like you did earlier.

Now we need to sharpen the image. Go to IMAGE -- MODE -- LAB COLOR. From the Channels window select only the Lightness channel. Go to FILTER -- SHARPEN -- UNSHARP MASK. More experimentation to get the look you want but in my example I setthe amount to 50% and the radius to 50 pixels. I also left the threshold at 0. Now go to IMAGE -- MODE -- RGB COLOR and the colours should return. You're done. Here is my end result for you to compare. As always click to enlarge and please visit my Flickr Photostream and leave comments.