Faux Hipstamatic

Hi all, Michelle here with my first post as an official Creative girl!!

I have loved being a guest for the 2010 simple things project and was thrilled and honoured whn I was invited to play along more with such a talented bunch of creative girls!

And so to the project I would like to share with you today .... something a little retro that should come with a warning to wear sunglasses for those of a nervous disposition LOL

 
Fashion victim?

Now I didn't make that long word in the title of this post up ... honest! A friend recently shared some photos that she had taken with her Hipstamatic app on her i phone. An app that takes classy versions of those 70/80's dodgy photos that we have all worked so hard to repair in our ever so advanced photo programmes. Well I got quite nostalgic and quite jealous as not only do I not have this app but don't have an i phone to put it on LOL then I got to thinking .... surely there was a way to manipulate our digital scans to look like dodgy photos from back in the day so I had a play.

 

This is a scan of moi as a wee girl sporting my favourite outfit of 1973 and looking through my files I realised what a good job the ever so sophisticated scanners do of repairing those dodgy photos. So I set about undoing all the good work of the technology in another photo programme. I used Picassa which is a FREE photo programme from Google. If you haven't heard of it or tried it please download it and have a play I LOVE it! I added Saturation from the effects library, then a film grain, a bit of glow, a yellow tint and a little soft glow for good measure and voila

Dodgy photo restored LOL

Once I printed it off I got down to the human side of undoing technology to give it a touchy feely quality. I sanded it with my trusty nail file (I have all the latest gadgets me :)) adding scratches to the surface and destroying the perfect edges of the picture.

I then distressed the edges with the blades of my scissors held at a 90 degree angle to the side of the photo to give it a tattered feel

And finally I creased the corners and followed this with a light inking with my distress inks.

The result, a photo returned to it's former dodgy gloriousness! Not quite the effect the i phone app gives but it was free and fun to play :)

 

I then added lots of retro colours with some Cosmo Cricket papers cut into wavy lines and squares with lots of distressing to lift the pieces and a bit of texture stamping in white with a Glitz designs texture stamp. I love the clashing colours of the tartan ribbon too, pleated and stapled into place.

I enjoyed this little photo 'regression' project, why not dig out some old photos and see if you can restore them to their former dodgy gloriousness!!

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to come back often to be inspired by the creative girls.See you at the weekend for the Simple Things project. Until then Happy Crafting

Love

M x

Comments

[Debbie Roberts]

Love the 'dodgy' photo, will def try picassa and see what effects I can come up with.

Debbie x

[jayne]

I've done this to photos , it's very theriputic ! Love the bright colours youve used too x

[Mustavcoffee]

Love the colours Michelle, definitely dodgy trousers tho xxx

[Carmen]

I love Picassa, been using it since my Photoshop Elements decided it didn't like me or my machine any more :( This is a fab page, really fun, made me chuckle. I'm sure I had a dress that I wore to death which was almost as loud as your little outfit *g*

[Sonja]

See I didn't need that app after all. Love the LO and the instructions cause funnily enough I was thinking about "hipstamaticing" some ordinary non phone piccies. You're a crafty star and I wasa giggling at your tools.

[Ginny]

I love Picassa, but never played around that much. That is very cool!

I find it really funny though, that now the new trend is making photos old. Before we spent so much time & even money to make photos look new. I have been wishing for an iphone specifically for that app, thanks for the idea to try other ways of making them!

[Andy Mars]

Very creative!