Polaroid Image Lift - the digital way!

2 Distortion
Now we start the basic distortion process, it is important to note that since Polaroid Lifts are so unique, there is no rule on
how much distortion to apply, However, the Displace we will use is so random that it’s important to not overdo it, just go by taste and remember that the final shaping will be done later with the Liquify tool

Not much change right? Don’t worry we want to go slow on the distortion to have it somehow under control. Now go to “Filter” and you will see that the “Displace” appears first at the top. Click and that will apply the filter again with the same settings, do so couple of times or until you get a distorted shape without affecting to much your main image area.

This is the result of applying the filter 4 times, the result is very random so don’t worry if yours comes up different. Also note how the thin border is visible now, showing darker in the places where it goes over the distorted image.

3 Creases and Folds
Now create a use the button “Create New Set” at the bottom of your layers palette, and place you “Thin Border” layer inside it. We do this so we can have an organized randomness.

Now, duplicate your “Thin Border” layer, the duplicated layers will be the folds or creases once we apply a “Displace” filter; you can also duplicate the layer many times now if you wish, just make sure you will always have a non modified layer of the “Thin Border”.

Once you have the correct shade, merge the duplicated layers (but do not merge your original one!!!), duplicate the original again and repeat the process but this time not aiming at making it fit to your main image, just play.

Also, to add more randomness use the “Free Transform Tool” on the layer to make the border smaller or crooked, do so before applying the distortion.

After playing for about three minutes with this technique I ended up with this.

Note that I haven’t merged the layers yet and they will stay that way until we finish the fine tuning.

Once you have fine tuned the lines Alt+Click your main image, go to “Select>Invert” then click on your folds layer and press “Del” on your Keyboard; with that you will get rid of the extra bits around the main image. If you like it with the extra bits, skip this step. Now that everything looks like you want you can merge everything together (except your Background layer) and do a last “Liquify” to shape you whole image.

Mine looked like this after those steps.

I kept the extra bits for this one.

4 Textures and area creases
This part is easier and not so random using Layer Overlays. There is other ways too, but this one is very simple and works well most of the time, the other ones are more complex and involve some 1 or 2 pixel drawing, maybe on an update of this tutorial I can add the other techniques. So…

Layer Overlays
A very straight forward technique where you use a texture layer set the blending mode to overlay and weak the opacity to taste.

I used this texture I found doing a quick Google image search.
This one work very well since it will give me a texture similar to watercolor paper plus the creases of the image area, also set to overlay will give me the particular washed out look some Polaroid lifts have.

So I add this image as a layer on top of the Main Image and set the Blending Mode To Overlay and tweaked the opacity to 54%.

Here is the result, fast and simple

Thus looking like this. The difference is subtle, but so are Polaroid lifts.

And to finish the image I did some Dodge/Burn brushing to lighten or darken some areas or lines, applied some Sharpening and voila!