by Chad Neuman

Holga cameras were created in China decades ago in order to create an affordable camera for the masses. Now hipsters and artists alike have discovered the Holga, taking photos that often turn out very suprising. Waiting for the photos to develop results in often desaturated photos, vignettes, and extra saturated areas on the photos. Here’s one way to add a Holga look to a normal photo by using Photoshop.
Step 1
Open holga.jpg, a photo of my friend Roxanne, in Adobe Photoshop.

Step 2
Double-click on the Background layer and click OK to make it a normal layer. Go to Filter>Distort>Lens Correction. Change the Vignette amount to -100 and the Vignette Midpoint to +40.

Step 3
Next, press Cmd-J (Ctrl-J) to duplicate the layer. Now let’s desaturate the top layer somewhat. Go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation and set the Saturation to -22. This effect is very subtle so far, and you can click the Eye icon to see the difference.

Step 4
Click the Eye icon on the top layer to make the top layer transparent for now. Click the bottom layer to edit it.

Step 5
Next, go to Image>Adjustments>Hue/Saturation. Change the Saturation to +100.

Step 6
Click the Eye icon on the top layer to turn off its transparency. Click the top layer to edit it, and the click the Add layer mask icon on the bottom of the Layers palette.

Step 7
Next, be sure to click the white mask box on the top layer in the Layers palette. Then, choose a soft brush, 300 pixels. Set the Foreground color to black. Click once in various areas and along the edges to simulate the Holga look seen in some photos.

Step 8
Finally, go to Filter>Distort>Lens Correction and set a Vignette to darken at -75 since we need more of a black edging for that vignette look that is often seen in photos taken with a Holga.