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How to Give a Digital Image an Instant-Film Look

Instant film cameras, which produce a type of photograph that develops itself instantly after it has been taken, have long been commonly referred to as "Polaroid" for their association with the company that first developed them and later dominated the market. Today, due to the rise of digital technology, Polaroid film is increasingly expensive and rare, but the old-fashioned aesthetic feel is still popular and can work well in collages or on the refrigerator. Luckily, today you can give a digital image the "Polaroid" feel using Adobe Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.

Things You'll Need

Digital photograph on your computer
Adobe Photoshop

Instructions

- 1
  Start a new document on Adobe Photoshop. Set the height to 4.25 inches and the width to 3.5 inches. These are the dimensions of a Polaroid photograph.
- 2
  Open the file of the photograph you want to convert into a Polaroid. Adjust the windows so you can see both open files on your screen. Click "Image" on the top menu bar and select "Image size." Set the image's height to 3.3 inches and the width to 3 inches. Crop your photo using the crop tool so that it fits within these dimensions.
- 3
  Drag your cropped photo from its file into the blank area in the other file. Move the photo to the spot a photo would be on a Polaroid; there should be white space at the top and sides, and these spaces should be even. There should be a much larger area of white space on the bottom.
- 4
  Click on the color box at the bottom of the tool menu bar, which is by default located on the left side of your screen. Select a gray hue. Select the box tool from the same toolbar. Make a box that lines up with the photo's borders but is about one pixel larger all around. Layer this gray box beneath the photo by dragging its layer beneath the layer of your photo in the "Layers" column, which is by default on the right side of your screen.
- 5
  Find the "Background" layer in this column and right-click on it. Click "Duplicate Layer." Select the duplicate and the top two layers in the layer column. Right-click and choose "Merge Layers." Now you can delete your original background layer.
- 6
  Click on "Layer" at the top menu bar. Choose "Layer Style" and then click on "Drop Shadow." Select "Multiply" for "Blend Mode." Set the Distance to 5 and the Size to 5 as well.
- 7
  Create a new layer by choosing "Layer" from the menu bar and then click on "New Layer." Use the Text tool and a font that looks like handwriting to add text. Select both the layer that contains the photograph and the layer containing the text you made in Step 11. Right-click on the layers and click "Merge Layers" to merge them.

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