The image above was shot on a Canon 5D Mark II and Canon 24-70mm f/2.8L

Lomo Photography or Lomography has gained quite the cult following in recent years. And it’s no wonder. These little Lo-Fi cameras, such as the Lomo LC-A, produce some really cool and compelling images. Aside from the Lo-Fi look of the Lomo, the other main feature of Lomography is the cross processing of the Color Slide Film.

A while back, I was trying to recreate this look on my digital photographs. However, the few tutorials I found online, while they were a start, didn’t really get me to the final Lomo look that I was trying to achieve. So, I made my own process, and now I have turned it into a full in depth tutorial for all of our SLR Lounge peeps.

We have broken this tutorial into two distinct parts. In Part I, we are going to take a look at Lomo Photography and dissect the images characteristics so that we know exactly how to reproduce them in Adobe Photoshop
. In Part II, we are going to start Photoshopping our image from start to finish. So, if you want to get straight to the Adobe Photoshop
part of this tutorial, skip to the second video in Part II.

To download the working file used in this tutorial, click here. (Note: This image is provided by Lin and Jirsa Photography for educational purposes only, it may not be used for any other commercial or non-commercial purpose without the express permission of Lin and Jirsa Photography.)

Our goal, is to help photographers understand and be able to recreate effects on their own by analyzing and dissecting image characteristics of Lomo photographs. If you are too excited and want to get right to the Photoshopping, then skip to Part II below. Otherwise, enjoy this first video, and then move on to the second.

Part II – Recreating the Lomo Effect in Adobe Photoshop
– Creating Lomography from Digital Photography

In Part I, we identified the steps we need to turn our digital images into great looking Lomo style images. In Part II, we are going to teach step by step how to turn your digital photographs into Lomographs.

Specifically, we will create the Lomo effect by recreating these characteristics that we identified in Part I.

Distinct Characteristics of a Lomo Photograph
1) Cross Processed Colors
2) Increased Saturation
3) Blown Highlights/Clipped Shadows
4) Heavy Vignetting
5) Film Grain
6) Sharp Center/Blurred Edges

So, let’s get on to the good stuff and actually create our Lomo image in the Adobe Photoshop
video tutorial below.

Hope you all enjoy! Let us know what you think.

1) Adobe Photoshop CS5 – Buy the full version of Adobe Photoshop CS5 at at Amazon (free shipping) Click any of these links to take you to the offer.

2) Adobe Photoshop CS5 Student and Teacher Edition is also available through Amazon, click here to take you to the offer.

Post Production Pye
SLR Lounge Senior Editor
Partner ofLin and Jirsa Photography

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