Collection of Polaroid Art from Etsy Site

Collection of Polaroid Art from Etsy site

POLAROID ART

Edwin Land was an inventor who specialized in working with polarized light. It was an interest he discovered in 1926, during his freshman year at Harvard. Eventually he would open a laboratory and apply his research to light filters, optical devices and motion-picture processes. The idea of instant photography, nevertheless, came from Land’s daughter who wondered why developing photos took so long. (Grant, n.d.)

The introduction of instant photography by polaroid helped spur a major growth of the development of new camera and film system. In 1980s, the innovation of a new type of camera was invented in form of Spectra camera which produced better picture quality. The introduction of the Hybrid IV a few years later brought near 35mm quality pictures to instant photography. In 1993, a more compact version of instant camera subsequently was released. (Save Polaroid, n.d.)

Polaroid art were found to be useful for purposes such as ID cards, passport photos, ultrasound photos and other uses which require an instant photo. They were also used by police officers and fire investigators to create an unalterable instant photo. The impact of Polaroid has not escaped professional photographers in which it is used to preview lighting before taking the more expensive/larger format photo. (Wikipedia, n.d.)

In the Adobe Photoshop, there are several steps to change a single photograph into a collage of polaroids:

Step 1: Duplicate the Background Layer

Step 2: Add a new blank layer between the two layers

Step 3: Fill the new layer with black

Step 4: Add a new blank layer between the black-filled layer and the copy of the original image

Step 5: Drag out a rectangular selection as the inside of your first Polaroid

Step 6: Fill the selection with black with Alt+ backspace

Step 7: Create a clipping mask from the filled selection

Step 8: Add Another New Blank Layer above “Layer 2”

Step 9: Drag out another rectangular selection as the border of the Polaroid

Step 10: Fill the selection with white and add a drop shadow layer style (if necessary)

Step 11: Rotate the Polaroid with Ctrl+T

Step 12: Group all three layers which make the Polaroid

Step 13: Duplicate the group

Step 14: Move and rotate the second Polaroid with Free transform command

Here is the example of the collage I made from the original picture of my travel to Cathedral in Moscow:

Full version:

Collage Polaroid version:

Reference

Grant, M. (n.d.). Polaroid Camera History. eHow. Retrieved February 7, 2011 from

n.a. (n.d.). A History of Polaroid. Save Polaroid. Retrieved February 7, 2011 from

n.a. (n.d.). Instant Camera. Wikipedia. Retrieved February 7, 2011 from