How to ‘Holgerize’ an image

This is a tutorial of how to turn a normal photograph in to a black and white photograph that looks like its been take by a Holga camera. For this tutorial I am going to use Photoshop CS3 but I think it will pretty much work in any.

(Click to enlarge Images.)

1. Get the image you want to edit. In this case I have chosen an old car.

Image

2. Open it up in Photoshop CS3 (or the version you have!)

3. select the ‘Crop tool’ and select the area that you want. Hold down shift while you drag out the box to make a perfect square.

4. When you are happy with your selection hit ENTER.

5. Hit Ctrl+SHIFT+u to make image black and white.

6. Next go Image > adjustments > Brightness and Contrast. (There are a number of ways to do this but I find this the quickest!)

An editor will pop up. Play around with the two sliders until you are happy…

7. Hit the gradient tool button> select ‘Radial gradient’ > tick reverse.

8. Click on the actual gradient thumbnail in the top left.

An editor should appear…Make sure your colours are black and white > select the second gradient from the left > move the top right arrow down to 30% (opacity 0). hit OK.

9. Still on the gradient tool, Start in the middle of the picture and drag the gradient tool out towards one of the corners. (this can take some experimentation. Use your history to try again. or hit Ctrl+Z).

10. The final result should looks something like this…

Additional step - Add Blur

If you wnat to go the extra distance and add the characteristic blur of the Holga lens, then follow these steps.

1. Select the Elliptical marquee tool. Feather it by around 20-30px > Make a circle around the center of your image, again holding shift to make it perfectly round

2. Hit Ctrl+SHIFT+I to inverse the selection.

3. Go Filter > Gaussian Blur and set the radius to 1.9px.

4. Hit OK and your done…

I hope this helps. If you have any problems please leave a comment and I will gladly answer.

With thanks to the internet.

Durkin