Lomography™ emphasizes casual, snapshot photography. Characteristics such as over-saturated colors, off-kilter exposure, blurring, and alternative film processing are often considered part of the
Lomographic Technique. Users are encouraged to take a lighthearted approach to their photography, and use these techniques to document everyday life, as the Lomo LC-A's small size, simple controls, and ability to shoot in low light encourages candid photography, photo reportage, and photo vérité. The 35 mm LOMO LC-A Compact Automat camera was originally created and produced by LOMO PLC of St. Petersburg, Russia.
(Wikipedia)There are numerous methods for achieving a lomographic effect through post processing. After exploring several of these, I developed the following relatively simple process using GIMP to create the desired effect.
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This lesson includes the following:
- Creating a rectangular selection with rounded corners
- Feathering a selection
- Duplicating and creating layers
- Setting layer modes and opacity
- Using the Curves Tool
- Using the Unsharp Mask filter
- And more
Choose an appropriate image or
download this one.
Begin by duplicating the background. I always like to duplicate the background image. In case anything goes horribly wrong, I can easily recover my original layer.
PART 1 Create the lomo trademark dark vignette1) Create a
new layer named
vignette
2) Use the
Rectangle Select Tool to create a
selection several pixels inside the edges of your original photo.
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3) Next
round the corners of the selection by 10%.
From the image menu, Select > Rounded Rectangle ...
4) Now
feather the selection by about 100 pixels.
Again, from the image menu, Select > Feather...
5) The next step is to
invert the selection.
Using the image menu, Select > Invert.
6) Now use the
Bucket Fill Tool to
fill the whole selection with black (FG color).
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7) In the Layers palette, set the
Opacity of the
vignette layer to 60%
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8) From the image menu, turn off the selection, Select > None.
This is what you should have at this point ...
PART 2 Create the hard, brassy color effect.
1)
Flatten the image to a single layer, Image > Flatten Image.
2) Duplicate that layer and rename it as
curves.
3) Using the
Curves Tool , Colors > Curves...,
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... adjust the color curves to an s-shape as shown here ...
4) Create a New Layer called
grain using the Foreground color (black) as the Layer Fill Type.
5) For the
grain layer set the
Mode to
Grain merge and the
Opacity to 20%.
This is about where you should be now ...
Part 3 Sharpen the image a bit and finish.Again,
flatten image to a single layer,
duplicate the layer and rename it
sharpen.
1) From the image menu, Filters > Enhance > Unsharp mask...
2) Use the settings shown below,
Radius: 20,
Amount: 0.7, and
Threshold: 0.
3)
Flatten the image once more and
Save.
Your finished product should look something like this ...
I hope you acquired at least one new skill or idea from working through this lesson. If you liked it, please share it.
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