Faking Lomo

Jake Ingman wrote a tutorial for faking lomo pictures with Photoshop. I always use The Gimp, so here is his tutorial rewritten for Gimp users.

• Open a picture.
• From the menu choose ‘Image: Colors: Brightness-Contrast’ and increase the contrast by 30.
• From the menu choose ‘Image: Colors: Hue-Saturation’ and increase the saturation by 30.
• Choose the ‘Rectangular Selection’ tool.
• Open the ‘Tool Options’ dialog.
• Select ‘Feather’ and change the feather amount to ⅛th of the width of your picture.
• Select your entire picture. Choosing ‘Select: All’ from the menu will not work.
• From the menu choose ‘Select: Invert’.
• Create a new layer in the ‘Layers, Channels & Paths’ dialog.
• Change your primary color to black. Fill the selection on the new, blank layer.
• Change the mode of this layer to ‘Overlay’.
• Duplicate the layer.
• From the menu choose ‘Select: None’.
• Now select your base layer (the one with the picture on it).
• Create a new layer.
• Select the ‘Blend’ tool.
• Change the gradient type to ‘Radial’.
• Change the blend type to ‘FG to transparant’.
• Change your primary color to white.
• With the blend tool selected, click in the middle of the picture, and drag the line out to the farthest edge of your picture (if it’s a portrait, use top or bottom, if landscape, use left or right).
• Change the mode of this layer to ‘Overlay’.
• Change the Opacity of this layer to 80% (or whatever you see fit, you’ll see what I mean).

Update: My good friend Avi wrote a Script-Fu script for this effect.

Another update: Ismael Valladolid Torres wrote another Lomo Script-Fu script.