Faking the Lomo effect in Photoshop

1. File: Open: the picture you want
2. Image: Adjustments: Brightness/Contrast: increase contrast by 20
3. Image: Adjustments: Hue/Saturation: increase saturation by 20
4. Choose the Rectangular Marquee Tool (your basic selection tool)
5. Change feather amount to 1/12 the width of your picture (if your picture is 600px wide then you will set your feather to 50px)
6. Select your entire picture note: using select: all, will not work
7. Select: Inverse
8. Layer: New: Layer
9. Change your primary color to black. Fill the selection (on the new, blank layer).
10. Change the blend mode of this layer to Overlay
11. Layer: Duplicate Layer
12. Now select your base layer (the one with the picture on it).
13. Layer: New: Layer
14. Change your fill tool to Gradient
15. Change your Gradient Type to Spherical
16. Change your Gradient Shading Style to "foreground to transparent" (I believe this is the default).
17. Change your primary color to white.
18. With the fill tool selected, click in the middle of the picture, and drag the line out to the farthest edge of your picture (if it's a portrait, use top or bottom, if landscape, use left or right).
19. Change the blend mode of this layer to Overlay
20. Change the Opacity of this layer to 80% (or whatever you see fit)

Results:

Photo by Hugo, at Flickr

http://www.lomophoto.com/fakelomo.php

Lomography

Lomography is a commercial trademark of Lomographische AG, Austria for products and services related to photography. The 35 mm LOMO LC-A camera employed an unusual lens which produced large amounts of distortion at the edges of the image whilst keeping the centre sharp.

Lomography emphasizes casual, snapshot photography. Accidents such as over-saturated colors, lens artifacts, and exposure defects are rehabilitated to produce swirly, abstract effects - a trait emphasized by practitioners. Others use the technique to document everyday life, because the small camera size and ability to shoot in low light encourages candid photography, photo reportage and photo vérité.

Current models marketed by Lomographische AG include Lomo LC-A, Holga, Holga 35mm, Actionsampler, Frogeye, Pop-9, Oktomat, Fisheye, Colorsplash, Colorsplash Flash, F-stop Bang, SuperSampler, Horizon 202, Seagull TLR and Smena 8M.

The following are the company's 10 Rules of Lomography:

1. Take your LOMO everywhere you go.
2. Use it anytime - day or night.
3. Lomography is not an interference in your life, but a part of it.
4. Shoot from the hip.
5. Approach the objects of your lomographic desire as close as possible.
6. Don't think.
7. Be fast.
8. You don't have to know beforehand what you've captured on film.
9. You don't have to know afterwards, either.
10. Don't worry about the rules.

http://www.lomophoto.com/