Photoshop How-To: Recreating Polaroid Image Transfers

Emulsion Transfers
The initial digital setup for an emulsion transfer differs a bit from the dry transfer setup. Wet transferring creates more of a watercolor effect and gives you additional flexibility with the placement of the print. To create a look similar to actual emulsion transfers, we’ll first have to scan in a cloth backdrop to place our image on. For our example shown in figure 9, we scanned in a white T-shirt. You can use any type of material that you prefer — just make sure that it’s white.

Figure 9: To create this image, we scanned in a white T-shirt for the background texture.

Make your backdrop. Once you’ve decided on what you’re going to scan in, place the cloth on the scanner. Then, create a series of free flowing wrinkles for added texture. Cover the entire flatbed, and then if you want your image smaller you can easily crop in on the best-looking section. After scanning in the cloth, open the image in Photoshop, if it isn’t already.

Next, we’ll eliminate any strange color casts created by the scanning process. To do so, choose Image > Adjust > Channel Mixer. In the resulting dialog box, select the Monochrome check box and click OK. This makes the image grayscale. And lastly, blur the image so that the shadows and highlights have a subtler blend. Choose Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and set the Radius to 3 or 4 pixels. Click OK to apply the filter. Figure 10 shows the steps involved in creating our backdrop.

Figure 10: When creating our backdrop, we scanned in a T-shirt, removed the bluish color cast, and finally blurred the image to make it appear smooth.

Add the image. Now it’s time to drag and drop your photographic image on top of your cloth background. So, open the image and drag it onto your cloth document. It will automatically be placed on its own layer; we’ll call this Layer 1. Change the layer’s blending mode to Multiply so that the cloth can show through the image. Also, lower the Opacity of the layer to approximately 80%. Just fade out the colors ever so slightly.

Next, we’ll add a grainy texture to the entire image, giving it an aged, artistic feel. To do so, choose Filter > Artistic > Film Grain. In the resulting dialog box, adjust the Grain slider to 2, the Highlight Area to 2, and the Intensity to 1. Then click OK.

Liquify it. Because things still look a bit stiff, we’ll have to soften the edges of our imagery. However, before we do that, we need to make the canvas larger. Choose Image > Canvas Size and increase the Width and Height of your canvas by one inch, leaving your images in the center of the page. Then click OK. Next, flatten your layers in the Layers palette and then choose Filter > Liquify (Image > Liquify in version 6.x). In the resulting dialog box, select the Pucker tool and run it along the outside edges of your image, making the page look wrinkled and warped, as shown in figure 11. Then click OK.

Figure 11: Use the Liquify dialog box’s Pucker tool to wrinkle the edges of your page.

Add a paper texture. You can leave your image as it is or you can take it a step further and add a paper texture to the background, as we did for our final image shown in Figure 9. To do the same, open the paper image that you scanned in earlier for the dry transfer technique, then drag it onto your emulsion document. Now, reposition the layer in the Layers palette so that it’s under your original image. Then, select the layer containing your original image and change the layer’s blending mode to Multiply. Finally, select the paper layer and feather the outside edges of the paper to blend things in even more.

SX-70 Manipulation
The SX-70 Manipulation process allows you to turn an instant photo into what looks like a painting. You can easily achieve this look using the Smudge tool in Photoshop. For this technique, we’ll show you how we transformed our original image into what you see on the right in figure 12.

Figure 12: You can turn a photograph into a painting using the Smudge tool.

Set up your image. To begin, open your original paper texture scan. Then, open an image to manipulate and drag that onto the document containing your paper image. Reposition and resize the image if necessary and then set the layer’s blending mode to Multiply to allow the paper texture to show through. (If you prefer, you can use a plain white background for this technique.)

Smudge it. Now it’s time to smudge your image so that it resembles a painting. So, select the Smudge tool. Then, go to the Brushes palette and select a medium-size soft round brush to work with. In the tool options bar, make sure that Mode is set to Normal and the Strength (Pressure in version 6.x) is at 55%. Now, simply paint over the image using small circular strokes or smooth short strokes. Experiment until you find a style that you like. Just continue smudging until the photo looks consistent.

Final touches. Lastly, if you want to dress up the image a bit, you can add a soft paper border around your figure as we did for the previous examples. You may also want to paint in additional colors or some rich black strokes to define your image. It’s all up to you.

The End of the Line
Now that you’ve seen a variety of interesting techniques to re-create Polaroid image transfers, you can test them out on all sorts of imagery. Try combining the different processes to see what new and unique creations you can come up with.

This story is taken from “Inside Photoshop” (Element K Journals).