This is my sample photo.

1. Adjust color balance:  Lomo images are weird color tone so I will change an original color tone to yellow tone. At this step, you can play with other adjust techniques as levels, curve, etc and you also can adjust color tone. This example I use color balance and adjust images to yellow tone.

2) Create a vignette: This step I will show you how to create a vignette.

2.1) Create new layer

2.2) Select rectangular marquee tool with 100 px feature and normal style and draw the rectangular as show in picture below

2.3) Select Inverse

2.4) Fill with Black Color

2.5) Deselect after filling black color in selection

2.6) Change “Layer1” property to overlay with 80% Opacity. After completion on this step you can see the vignette.

3) Create Gradient Tone as per steps below;

3.1) Create new layer, “layer2”, between layer1 and Background

3.2) Select Gradient tool: I normally use radial gradient tool.

3.3) Select Foreground (White) to Transparent

3.4) Draw the gradient

3.5) Adjust layer property to Overlay with 80% Opacity

4) Adjust background image contrast: Normally I adjust image Curves to S-Curve shape. Anyway, you can adjust until you see the color tone you like.

5) Create darkness to a lomo image: You may not do this step if you like your color tone but I like the image looks dark a little bit. Therefore, I adjust brightness and contrast of the image.

WOW!!! you get the lomo image by using Photoshop.

Ps, this is the guideline so you can try and adjust this technique for your images.

See the “Before and After”. You will see an awesome result of this effect.

1) See my photograph and you will see that the saturation is not that good. Firstly , I normally duplicate a background layer by dragging the background layer over a create new layer icon as below because you can go back to see the original photo or if you do something wrong with it you still have the original image.

2) Change the color mode to LAB (Image>Mode>Lab Color)

3) Then the program will ask you to flatten all layers into one layer. You must answer “Don’t Flatten”.

4) Then you can see in the channel pallet that there are 4 layers (Lab, Lightness, a and b).

5) Select “Lightness” channel and select the curve command (Image>Adjustment>Curves) to add contrast into the photo.

6) Adjust the curve to S-Curve shape to add saturation.

7) Select “a” channel and drag the bottom point to the right. So you will see that green tone is added into the photo.

If you drag the top point to the left, you will see that magenta tone is added into the photo.

9) Drag equally between the top and the bottom point to balance color tone added into the photo as shown below. You can see that the color saturation looks better now.

10) Select “b” channel and drag the bottom point to the right. So you will see that blue tone is added into the photo.

11) If you drag the top point to the left, you will see that yellow tone is added into the photo.

12) Drag equally between the top and the bottom point to balance color tone added into the photo as shown below. You can see that the color saturation looks PERFECT now.

13) You may add sharpness into this photo (Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask)

14) Adjust some parameters until you feel happy about a result. In this case, I use Amount = 50%, Radius = 1 pixel and Threshold = 0.

With Lab color mode, you can add the realistic saturation into you photos. It’s nice and easy method.

Any suggestions or recommendations are very welcome.

1.Select Curve from the adjustment layer

2.In RGB channel, adjust curve to S-Shaped to increase overall contrast of photo.

3.In Red channel, adjust curve to S-Shaped to increase contrast of red channel.

4.In Green channel, adjust curve to S-Shaped to increase contrast of green channel.

5.In Blue channel, adjust only the shadow area of blue channel.

6.Press Crtl + Alt + Shift + E to merge visible layer. You can see the “Layer1” on top.

7.Adjust “Layer1” from Normal to Overlay mode and reduce opacity until you feel good about the overall photo. According to this photo, I adjust opacity to 24%.

Ok I am satisfied with the result ^_^