Cheap Polaroids, digitally

Polaroid photography is gratifying...instantly and long-term. There's a comforting quality to the vintagey color palette and the blurriness of the photo. And best of all, it's already framed. After seeing Audrey's newly posted Polaroids, I was sure that I could find a quick Photoshop filter online that would give me the results I wanted. To my surprise, there were plenty of tutorials on how to fake the white Polaroid border, but nothing that would actually change the image quality.

After a couple hours of tinkering with color balance, saturation, density, constrast, levels, etc., I came up with a decent Photoshop action that mimics a Polaroid. Here are the before and after files (special thanks to the guy I stole the original photo from on Flickr).



Original:


I'll post the Photoshop action soon for anyone who's intersted.