Tutorial: Polaroid Photo Effect on Adobe Photoshop CS6

Hey guys! I’m going to share my knowledge about customizing your photos so they will have effect just like on Polaroid. It’s very easy and fast. And this cute little puppy photo from Awww Club will be an example for my tutorial. Anyway, I use Adobe Photoshop CS6 for this tutorial, and I think the previous version of Adobe Photoshop is compatible.

Step 1

Open your favorite photo on your photoshop. And then, create new layer adjustment with black and white gradient. And set the blend mode to ‘Hard light’ with opacity: 50%.

Step 2
Next, add another layer adjustment with Brightness/Contrast. Set the Brightness: 20, Contrast: -50. This step may be different with yours, you can customize depend on your photo.

Step 3

Create another new layer adjustment with gradient. This time, add a blue-orange gradient.

And then, set the blending mode to ‘Screen’ and the opacity: 50%. So it will look like this

Step 4
Create new layer adjustment with Exposure. Set the offset: +0.0460

Step 5

And then add a new layer adjustment again, this time with Curves. In this layer adjustment, I set the input:107 and Output:79 for the first dot, and for the second dot I set the input: 174, Output: 120. So it will look like this

Step 6

The last step is to add a new layer adjustment with Photo Filter. I use Warming Filter with 35% Density. You can adjust it with another filter color!

Ta-da! It's really easy right? I hope this tutorial will be useful for you!

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