If you are after a little set of actions to ‘holga-fy’ a photo, look no further!
I have created a handy little action list that will do the job perfectly.
Here’s some instructions
- 1.Download the holga photoshop action (right click>save as will work best), it’s probably a bit dodgy with some undo’s thrown in as I was recording it! But it should work ok.
- 2.Double-click on the file to import it into photoshop.
- 3.Create a canvas 2048*2048 and paste in the photo of your choice
- 4.Flatten the image or merge down(ctrl+e, cmd+e whichever for pc/mac).
- 5.Click on the Holga folder in the actions panel and click on the play button.
- 6.That’s it…one instant holga style black and white photo. If you don’t want it in black and white, simply expand the holga action and untick the final ‘make adjustment layer: hue/saturation’ to leave it in colour.
You may be able to edit the action list contents to change the settings for different size photos, as I understand 2048*2048 is quite big. I may release another one for smaller pictures soon.









Comments
Great plug in. I’ve used it on quite large files (4000×6000) with no problems at all.
The effect is spot on – well done.
it’s great action im sure…
GREAT!!
it’s great action
thank you so much for this!!
This looks great! However, alas, I am having serious problems running it and could do with some assistance. When I start the action it all behaves fine until it gets to the step “Move current layer to: Layer 3″ at which point a dialogue box pops up on my mac saying “The Move command is not currently available”. I’m not clear why this is. I just stop the script at this point and manually move the current layer to the top, but why is the action not doing it automatically?
I’m using PS CS on a Powerbook G4 running Mac OS X 10.4. Any clues? I’ve followed the above instructions to the letter btw. Thanks for an otherwise excellent action
Hi digichick, that’s peculiar, I wonder if it’s something to do with the different versions of photoshop. Will take another look at it
is the “holga” link supposed to lead you to the download? it only shows up as html. or am i an idiot? =D
good
[...] To Fake A Holga Photograph. Step by step guide – or just download this action for an instant [...]
I’ve tried and it doesn’t work..Can someone help me by showing your photo as example?Thanx
this did not work well at all.
umm…
how do you download it? i clicked the underlined ‘holga’ and it just led me to a bunch of random letters and symbols.. help?
Hi Lindsey,
Try right clicking in the file and choosing ’save as’.
Hmm. Didn’t work in Pshop CS4
It runs fine in PS5 Ext (Mac 10.6.4). Fun effect/ Thanks for posting this action.
Note to those that seem to have trouble getting it started. Right click (Ctrl+Click on Mac) and save it to your desktop. Then double click on Holga.atn on your desktop. That should open PS and install the action. You will find the action under “Window -> Actions … probably at the bottom of the list. Open a picture, HIghlight the Holga action and then click the run button at the bottom (Right triangle like on a DVD player)
Hmm…too bad. It doesn’t wanna work with PS CS5–it just bleaches out the image.