POLAROID ADDICT: A BIT OF NOSTALGIA
The last century ...
Ah ... the good old days before! You remember? NO? This is normal, you were not born ... was in 1970 ... in other words centuries ago!
The digital camera did not exist ... was the time of the B&W film (nothing to do with Panda-bears).
And when taking a picture, you must wait until the roll of photo film is completed to bring it to develop at the photographer's store and get your shots 3 days later... Briefly, prehistory!
When suddenly arrives :...TAA ...TAA ... TAAAAAA ! The PO-LA-RO-ID ! No need to wait, or so little: as soon as the photo was taken, it was ejected from the camera and before our dazzled eyes ... it is slowly ... for, after 3 minutes longer be full. It is Progress!
Yet this inimitable image with improbable colors, super-saturated, slightly blurred never failed to charm ! it was perfectly recognizable thanks to its special format among thousands of others pictures.Inside was a roll of 10 blank photos... no more! It was therefore necessary to save the shots !
And then appears the digital camera ... whose fast development rings the death knell of old processes : POLAROID society closes in 2008 the "instant films" division after a long illness ... END of the GAME!
The future of the instant photo seems blocked!
It would be the end of these vignettes so recognizable because of their square photo format on an elongated paper, it would be the end of these improbale colors, this slight blur and the inevitable vignetting?
Yes, the end... Unless the lovers of this photo format, and there are many of them, fight to keep a trace of their favorite camera: the POLAROID!
Polaroid enthusiasts
A team of foolish of instant photos , nostalgic for the good old days have created a site ... Go to visit it if you love those old polaroid photos with the inimitable charm ... and if, in your attic, you find one of these old machines may be you find there a pack film (10 views statutory) from the dark ages !
On this site, continuously updated, you will find the latest news on the Polaroid technique: the new instant cameras, the new "films", the new formats?
You want your Polaroid photos ?
A lot of possibilities to create your own polaroids : on line, photo editor, specialized software, android or ios applications or have a recent camera... You have the choice, that's what we develop here!
Turn a photo into polaroid on line
This is an excellent method to transform your pictures into almost real polaroids. Many sites can do the work, just search them on your favorite search engine.
I recommend: PIXIZ.com which, between the different possible effects to modify a photo offers you a simple and convincing polaroid module .
Here's what I was able to get in a few clicks...
Among the hundreds of effects proposed ... here is one that I found easy to implement and interesting to use ... You will find it here ! It's just an animation of your pictures transformed into polaroids...
Click on the logo above and you will go directly to the polaroid effect of the PhotoFunia website... which works well and gives very well done imitations of old polaroids... The "improbable" colors are well imitated, the white paper is dirty, just as it should be... a good job of imitation!
Let's also note some fun effects on PhotoFunia... Notably this one: your image is transformed into polaroid and appears as a photo held by a hand, the initial photo being used as background... You can see the subject and his photo within the picture...
Visit this (too) vast site at least once... just for creativity! For fun, I show you one of the effects, this mix of black and white and color processed in a polaroid way.
Nice effects on PicJoke.com, especially for your scrapbooking pages... this one where the accumulation of polaroid photos is pleasant :
Create polaroid with photo editor
With photoshop, photofilter or the Gimp... it's easy to imitate the style of the old polaroid photos...
This creation is done in two steps: the frame first and the photo itself...
Dimensions of a polaroid are: 8.8x10.7cm with a square window of 7.9x7.9cm. So start by creating a rectangular image of 1040x1,264px with a resolution of 150px/in. (it is easier to work in pixels, the figures given respect the proportions).Then open the 934 pixels square window at the top of your image to get the polaroid frame.
Now open your photo and you will change the colors slightly to get closer to the polaroid photo. You should know that with these instant processing cameras, it was quite difficult to predict the result...First of all, the photo was not always very sharp... you will bring a slight blur to your image (in photoshop see Filters>Blur>Gaussian Blur)... then work on the color with Image>adjustments>Hue/saturation... Give, as in reality, a shift towards yellow... or green... or towards red depending on your mood...
The result is always unexpected... just like in reality!
Use a specialized software
There is a crazy soft that not only transforms your pictures into polaroids, but also imitates perfectly the operation and noise of the vintage camera shown at the top of this page...
This software is Poladroid! It is an image generator in the manner of a Polaroid ™ that produces the final images in high resolution (400 dpi) having a real Polaroid ™-like look and which can be printed or directly put in your Scrapbooking pages.
It is a non-standard software, downright offbeat, which reproduces all qualities and defects of a real Polaroid picture : an unique rendering. This software is POLADROID !
It provides improbable images ! - Have the square centring and wide bottom margin.
- Change in color with time as and wherever they appear.
- Are strongly more lighter in the center than at the edges.
- Are affected ... as true ones: scratches, dust, finger prints ...
- The colors are "pushed" to the extreme by a sudden film processing...Finally, we are surprised to discover again the picture we was supposed to know ..
Want to try? It's easy! First download the free software Poladroid (not a trial version ... it's really freeware!)
Then unzip the downloaded file and click on the ".msi" file (windows) to install the program Poladroid. A launch icon appears on the Windows desktop.
Now, go to the images processing !
Using Poladroid software
Run the application from the windows desktop ... a beautiful Polaroid camera appears. Arrange on the desktop some JPEG photos to process ...
Drag with the mouse your JPEG files directly on the camera. A few seconds and the first picture is ejected. As in reality! It'll just wait for the picture to appear ... slowly ... very slowly (You can shake the photo to expedite the processing... this is not a joke !).
Here are the images being developed:
And the resulting prints are "just like the real thing", with scratches and fingerprints on the white paper!
The most fun thing about this software is that if you process the same image several times in a row, as in reality, you won't get the same result! On the old sensitive surfaces, the color, contrast and light depended on the temperature, the way to take the film out of the camera... C'est le NTSC !!! (Never twice same color).
There is a whole field to explore!
I let you discover the setting of options, especially regarding "dirt" and "scratches" on the images ...
It's a free application that you can find on Play-store for Android or Apps-store for Apple, and that will work on your mobile phone without any problem. It proposes to "take pictures" with a list of legendary vintage cameras...
Including the Polaroid, renamed for the occasion "Xolaroid"... The imitation of the results is almost perfect, especially in the completely random color range of the pictures...
You will also get acquainted with 5 or 6 old legendary cameras... anecdotal but spectacular!
The operation is ultra-simple: you first choose your device from the list proposed ... Here is the XDROID... Just follow the instructions: press the shutter release and... that's it!
All you have to do is admire your "polaroids".
Of course, you can also recover the image files to integrate them in your scrapbooking pages !! The photos are then freed from the "share app" and "share print" options visible on the screen above.
It is still a solution... By telling you that these cameras have made enormous progress and that the quality of the photos is much better than before... This is exactly what those who are nostalgic for the old pictures with all their "moving" defects are not looking for !
The POLAROID firm first comes out of the film for its old cameras... So if you find one of these old devices in a trunk at the bottom of an attic, do not throw it away, it can still be useful. A new film cartridge, charged batteries and hop ! Your old polaroid is back in use... Vous retrouverez ces pellicules chez Amazon en particulier.
I advise you to visit the website polaroid-passion.com, under "devices" in the top menu... you will find dozens of models of these modern or old polaroids with all the film references...
There are modern films that fit in these old cameras... There are so many models that we can't go around here... even the Polaroid film has resumed their production... See on polaroid-passion...
Fuji has started manufacturing cameras and 10-shot packs. The format of the photos is different, smaller, as big as a credit card (46x62mm).
To start, there are inexpensive and very complete sets ... camera, bags, lenses, film and various ... Here is an Amazon link to see for yourself.
This is really an entry level set, but remember, unless you make a professional activity out of it, film is expensive with, at the same time, a much better image quality than in the old days !!!
Still at Fuji and in the mid-range, we noticed the InstaxMini90 which seems particularly attractive. A "camera" look that is more serious than the acid plastic shells of the entry-level models...
Good capacities, a lens a little better than the previous ones: the quality of the photos increases (without ever of course equaling that of the silver process cameras or even the digital one... but it is not the quality we are looking for here first)... simply get photos instantly.
Automatic settings, possibility to double an image, "Bulb" mode (the shutter remains open as long as the shutter button is pressed) which allows you to photograph light trails... To be seen on the site.
Here is a link to all of Amazon's offers on this subject...
