Achieving the Toy Camera look (2 of 2)

Tweet Last week I showed one method for achieving that 'toy camera' look, and I promised to show another method. Chris Spooner has also featured a third method, so you've got plenty of options!

Open your image in Photoshop. I'm using one of my own images of the Grainger Market in Newcastle.

Add a Curves adjustment layer. Choose ‘Red’ from the dropdown channel menu and edit the curve to match the one in the picture.

Also choose ‘Green’ and ‘Blue’ and edit the lefthand half of the curve by dragging downwards to make the image look very red.

With the adjustment layer active, add a layer mask. Click on the Gradient Tool. Draw a Black-White gradient across the image so that the red portion remains on the left.

Add another Curves adjustment layer and click on the ‘Blue’ dropdown channel. Drag the left half upwards to turn the image blue. Add a layer mask and add a gradient going in the opposite direction.

Now, a lot of these toy camera images have vignettes. So draw an ellipse with a feather of around 200px - invert the selection and, on a new layer, fill it with black. Set the blending mode to 'multiply' and lower the opacity. I like my vignettes to be extra strong at the edges so I painted along each edge of the image with a soft-edged black brush on a new layer, which I set to 'soft light'.

And there you have it!

Which method do you prefer?

Achieving the Toy Camera look (1 of 2)

Tweet I got a Canon Powershot A810 for my birthday this year, and I've been experimenting with the image modes that it ships with. Normally I would shoot everything on P mode and make my edits in Photoshop - you might wonder why, since you can often achieve good effects with the modes, but the problem is, if you use the mode, there's no way of recovering the image without the edits applied by the camera. Applying the edits in Photoshop allows for greater flexibility. However, I'm particularly taken with the 'Toy camera' mode, which seeks to emulate the plastic toy cameras that have become all the rage in photography circles of late. This is an image of a steam engine on the Tanfield Railway that I took with the mode.

I really like it, but at the same time, I still prefer to take images in P mode and edit them later. So in this post, and the next, I'm going to show two ways of 'faking' the toy camera look in Photoshop.

First, I've opened my image. You can see that it's a fairly flat and lacklustre image, as most digital photos are when they're straight from the camera.

Next, I've cropped the image to easily centre the engine. I usually divide the width by the height of the image to get the ratio, to ensure that any cropping preserves the proportions of the image. For this camera, the ratio is 1.33.

Now, I've added a Curves image adjustment layer to boost the contrast. An easy way to do this is to create an S curve by moving curve up at the top right point, and down at the bottom left point.

Next, I added another Curves adjustment layer, but in this case, I changed the channel using the dropdown box. I added curves for the Red, Green and Blue channels to give the image that red cast.

Finally, I added a dark brown layer over the top, set the blending mode to 'Multiply', lowered the opacity, and used a layer mask to paint out the centre. This gives the vignette look so common to toy cameras.

And that's it! Next week I'll post the alternative method as well.

Quickly Lighten a Night Time Shot

Tweet It's always a shame when you take a photo at night and find that even if you used a decent shutter speed or a flash, the image is still a little dark. So today we'll have a look at a quick and easy way to lighten your images in Photoshop. I'm using an image of the Northern Goldsmiths jewellers in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Open your photo. You won't get very far if you don't.

Now, duplicate the layer. Either drag the Background layer down to the New Layer icon, or just press Ctrl+J/Cmd+J. Set the blending mode of this layer to 'Screen'.

It already looks lighter, but we need to do a bit more to it to improve its look.

Click on the Adjustment Layers icon at the bottom of the layer palette and select 'Curves'. Give yourself an S curve a bit like this, to boost the highlights and darken the shadows.

The settings you choose will depend on your image, but an S curve of some description is a pretty safe bet. You'll get an image with more contrast. It already looks less 'flat' than the image that came out of the camera.

It's kind of yellow, which you could fix by altering the colour balance with a new adjustment layer, but I want a bit of a 'filter' effect. I've created a layer that I flood filled with dark blue (hex code 1B1464). I set this to Hue and lowered the opacity.

You should end up with something a bit more like this!

And there you go! It's such a simple technique, and by altering the curves or using different coloured overlays, you can achieve all kinds of effects depending on what you're going for. Have fun!

Creative Postcards

Tweet I came across this post over on Creative Bloq (and subsequently followed it through to Akos Papp's Postcards From Above blog) and I was so impressed with the range of postcards that he's created that I thought I'd have a go at my own. I've only done two, of Newcastle upon Tyne and London, but in both cases I've tried to pick specific locations and an image treatment/font combination that 'ages' them.

In Newcastle's case, I've gone for a faded pink/red colour cast so typical of the Seventies, and I've gone for a retro font treatment to go with the colours. The view is from Google Maps and depicts the train line that runs through Newcastle, with the Castle Keep, Vermont Hotel and Moot Hall to its south, with the Black Gate, Milburn House and St Nicholas' Cathedral to the north.

In the case of London, I went for a more faded, vintage colour, and a Fifties style font to match the colour. The view is of Trafalgar Square, with the National Gallery in the top centre of the image. It just goes to show that you can find source material in all sorts of places.

What do you think?

Liven Up A Photo

Tweet Sometimes you can take an image on a camera phone, and it looks perfectly alright on the screen, but you look at it on your PC and suddenly you notice it's a bit flat. It's easy enough to 'pep up' a slightly faded looking image, and I've done it here in just three steps.

I took this image of the sun rising over the field I pass on my way to work. It's nice, and the one advantage of the shorter days is I'm actually up in time to see sunrise.

Still, things could be improved. A couple of colour balance layers bring out the blue in the sky, and put the green back into the frost-encrusted grass.

I like that lens flare that the camera naturally introduced, but a tad more won't go amiss.

And finally, a vignette to drive the eye inward.

Yes, Instagram can do all these fancy things to your images, but instead of automated filters, isn't it nice to just do it yourself?

Changing the Weather

Tweet Following on from the digital rain tutorial that I posted last week, I thought I'd share a short process for how I drastically altered a stock image.

I started off with an image of a road and a rainbow from Sxc.hu.

Then I removed the rainbow, cloned out the people on the left hand side, cropped the image to remove the sign to the left, and darkened the whole image using both Levels and the Brightness/Contrast function as adjustment layers.

Next I added storm clouds from another stock image, this time on a new layer set to 'Multiply'.

Then I added my first layer of digital rain.

And another, this time set to 'Multiply.

And finally, a dark vignette around the edges!

#Tutorial - Digital Rain

Tweet Every now and then, it's nice to be able to change the weather. Sometimes taking photos of rain doesn't quite work, so in this tutorial, I'll show you how to add artificial rain to an image. This will either boost any existing rain, or change the weather altogether! I'm going to use this photo I took on the North York Moors.

Now, duplicate the layer (Ctrl / Cmd + J). Go to Filter > Add Noise. Choose Uniform and Monochromatic, and a fairly high number.

Now go to Filter > Blur > Motion Blur. I've chosen an angle of 60o, but you might want to have the rain slanting in a different direction. Experiment with the amount until you get something similar to this.

You'll have an odd border where the blur has faded out, so hit Ctrl/Cmd and T to bring up the Free Transform option. Drag the blurred section so the border is beyond the edge of the image. Hit Enter to accept the change.

Now you'll need to alter the opacity, or change the blend mode, to make it look like rain. I have mine set on Vivid Light at 99%. Voila! Digital rain!

If you've had a go, post your result in the comments so I can have a look!