Posted in photography
(2) Vintage Photo Looks: Holga
The Holga is a medium format camera with a few charming “flaws”: soft focus, light leaks and vignetting. You can create this low-tech appeal digitally with various methods.
1. Webbased tools
Upload an image on the HolgaNizer and the application turns it into a Holga image. For inspiration you can check out the HolgaNizer Flickr Group. Side effects of the PHP-based script include a very low resolution (300×300 pixel) and a mandatory film frame border around the image. If you want this action for Photoshop, it costs $20, but it allows for a much greater image size. I very much like the pretty light leak in the right bottom corner. There is a group on deviant art focusing especially on photos with light leaks.
2. Photoshop
a) General actions
Alberto Campione offers a free Holga Photoshop action called “Holga Simulator” and Lawrence Ripsher has a tutorial on how to use it. On top of the action I included a viewfinder frame to make it even more realistic.
There are also nice actions – not only in b&w but also in color and silver-toned – by Chris Fawkes. Additionaly I used this texture in the image.
If you like a strong radial blur then you can use the action by tannermorrow.
b) Special actions
Holga + Polaroid = Holgaroid! Rawimage has some wonderful actions for these special images – one for black&white and one for color.
c) Tutorials
If you want a look in detail at one way to achieve the Holga characteristics in Photoshop, then take a look at the different steps by Lenscraft or the video tutorial by PhotoshopGirl. Feel free to experiment and keep in mind, that there are many ways to holga-fy an image.
I would very much like to see what you come up with, if you’d like to share.