I love the look of Instagram photos, but I find when I want to take a photo with my phone, I don’t have the time to figure out which filter I want to apply. Another downside for the app in my book is the resulting images are low-resolution, which is never good for digital scrapbooking. Maybe you are like me, or maybe you don’t have an iPhone, but love the Instagram look.
I found some Photoshop actions this past week that will do the trick and they are free! I played around with them a bit and they are super easy to use! Just install them (drag and drop into Photoshop), open your photo, save with a new name, run the action. These actions are destructible, so you will want to save them with a new name before running the action (non-destructible actions apply the affects with layer masks that are easily deleted if you change your mind, at the end of destructible actions, you just have a flattened image).
The original image is not too exciting. Just something I thought was interesting in Pike’s Market last time I was there. Here it is Straight Out of Camera…well, I cropped it (the thin black stroke added to each image was done during creation of the post to separate the blog background from the white borders):
I added the action name on each photo, so you know what the results look like:
With these actions, you apply the effect first and then can add any border you want to any effect.
I had a lot of fun playing with these! Go ahead and give them a try! It’s a fun and easy way to take a so-so image to art with a click of a mouse.
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Hello! I just happened upon your blog just now and I love the few post that I have read already! I am personally addicted to instagram right now! Nice to learn some of these new tricks on photoshop!
p.s.. I also saw your post about pinterest and you had said that you would send invites to people.. I am really wanting to start pinteresting and was wondering if you would please invite me!
Can any of these work in Photoshop Elements 9? I see other people had problems with it-has anyone been able to use it?
this is the BEST birthday present ever!!—i’ve been waiting for actions like this to use for my photos—you’re totally awesome—THANK YOU FOR THE GIFT!!!—remain blessed!!!
I love Instagram, too! I’d like to learn how to use Photoshop. Which is the best one for me to use in the beginning without spending money?
By the way, I was looking for reprints for my scrapbook layouts. I found Scrapbook Pictures website that I could order 3×3, there is only limit 3×3 which is best resolution. not enlargement than 3×3.. I wish I could find a way to use enlarge a little more than 3×3 so I’d scrapbook or put in photo-divided protection sheet.
The reason they can only be printed 3×3 is because they are such low resolution. If you print them larger, they will be pixelized and you wouldn’t be happy with them. You can order prints from within the Instagram app (at least that is what I’ve heard).
You can download a 30day free trial of Photoshop Elements from Adobe. That would be a great program to start with.
I love Instagram! And I love these! Off to check the actions