Loving the film photo look but don’t have time or can’t afford to start investing in shooting with film? Today, we are bringing you a tutorial that can help you recreate that film look for your summer photos!
Photos taken on film are much more fun and authentic, of course, but this tutorial will help you recreate the general aesthetic that film photos give off.
1. Choose your photo and open it up in Photoshop. I’m using a picture taken with an iPhone camera here!
2. To add those grainy texture and specks to your photos, I found this fantastic free pack of film dust textures from Spoon Graphics here.
You can also get creative and try to make your own or omit this step if you don’t like the look of film dust.
To add the film dust texture, drag one of the jpgs into your Photoshop file. To keep the dust white, set your blending mode to Screen.
If you want black dust, you’ll need to invert your photo by clicking Command + I. Next, change your blending mode to Multiply to get those dark film dust speckles to show up over your photo.
You can even duplicate the layer to really add onto the textured look!
3. Next, I added a Solid Color Fill with #4b4b4b and set the Blending Mode to Lighten to provide a moody color and even out the shadows. You can play with the opacity here to adjust the darkness of the shadows.
4. Light leaks are also a fun and prominent part of some film photos. To create your own light leaks - take the brush tool and draw a simple line or blob shape anywhere on your photo.
5. Next, go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. I set my radius to 197 pixels.
6. Play around with the Blending Modes on the light leak! I find that Lighten or Screen work well for this. Repeated this step and added a yellow light leak on the left side of the photo.
7. Lastly, I added adjustment layers for Brightness/Contrast and Curves to deepen the colors a bit.
Tip: Photoshop also has a built-in Lens Flare feature under Filter > Render > Lens Flare that you can also play around with!
You’re done and have a fun photo that resembles the film aesthetic! See below for a few more examples and have fun giving your summer photos all the charming aesthetic of a faux film look!
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Concept by Anna Korol. Anna is a graphic designer and illustrator based in Chicago and a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She loves creating vibrant illustrations that she hopes can positively inspire others.