Pinhole cameras are wonderful, and despite modern advances in camera technology the images they produce have a lasting charm. It is fairly easy to create a “pinhole lens” for a digital SLR and you can still buy pre-made ones, as well as dedicated pinhole cameras. The only problem with this purist approach is you end up with an image that can only be pinhole.

The purpose of this tutorial is to show you that you can re-create (most) of the pinhole effect on a regular image. This means that your image can enjoy life in may forms - pinhole, lomo, arty, colour etc. As with most things there are many ways to create this effect, so please let me know what your personal preferred methods are.

The main characteristics of a pinhole camera we are looking to recreate are the huge depth of field and long exposure times. There is also considerable vignetting with pinhole cameras.

Step 1 - Select the image.

Pick an image that has good potential for pinhole effects. Ideally you want something with a fairly central subject (ignoring the rule of thirds), has no people or animals and has good contrast potential for black and white conversion. It is almost impossible to recreate the pinhole depth of field in photoshop, so look for an image which was taken with the smallest aperture possible.

For this tutorial we will use a picture taken at Giants Ring, Co Antrim. If you can, keep the image as a 16 bit RAW file for as long as possible (images here have been converted to JPEG for online viewing).

Initial Image

Step 2 - Crop for effect

Most digital cameras shoot in a 3:2 (or 4:3 for FourThirds users) rati, which is great for your regular prints and screen use. Here we want to mimic the effects of an old-style camera so give the image a crop. Some ratios you may want to consider are 12:9 to mimic a medium format 6×4.5cm camera (such as the Mamiya 645) or a 1:1 square format (there is a flickr group dedicated to square images, and they sort of mimic the results of older cameras like the 6×6 Rolleiflex). The choice here is dictated by the particular image you have, and in this case I think a 1:1 crop looks best. Remember, later stages will blur and disort the edges, so if you have a significant focal point, keep it central.

Square format crop

Step 3 - Blur the edges

Next we need to recreate the defocussed effect around the edges of a pinhole camera image. We can do this quite easily in photoshop:

Go to Filter->Blur->Radial Blur. Choose zoom as the method and best quality. In the amount slider enter “4″ and click OK to apply the blur. Check the image is still sharp where you want it, and if so, go back to Filter->Blur->Radial Blur. This time select best quality spin but drop the amount to 1. This gives a mild blur, if you want a stronger effect just repeat the steps.Now your image should be sharp in the middle but somewhat blurred around the edges.

Image with blurred edges

Step 4 - Vignette

Next we want a dark vignette around the edges of the image. This can be done in many ways and depends on how sharp an edge you want. Some pinhole images have very defined vignettes, while others are softer. For this image we will use a medium vignette. This can be done very quickly in photoshop.

Go to Filter->Distort->Lens Correction. In the vignette box enter -100 for the darkest possible vignette and click OK to apply. This can be done several times if the effect isnt dark enough for your needs.

Image with a medium edged vignette

Soft and hard edged vignettes will be covered in a future tutorial.

Step 5 - Convert to black and white

While there are colour pinholes, black and white images convey the feel a lot better. There are dozens of methods for converting an image into black and white using photoshop, so please use which ever you are most comfortable with. For the purposes of this tutorial we will use the Photoshop Black and White adjustment layer as this gives the most control over how the colours are converted.

Go to Layers->New Adjustment Layer->Black and White. (Give it a name if you want) Now you can adjust the sliders until you are happy with how the image looks. This can take some time, so be patient. Try the presets and see how they make your image look, then use them as a starting point to adjust colours to get exactly what you want. For this image I used these settings:

Conversion Settings

This gave the dark, moody effect I was looking for. Now you have the chance to add any levels / contrast tweaks your image needs to fine tune its appearance. With this image an auto levels and +10 increase in contrast got everything as I wanted it:

Mono Pinhole Image

Step 6 - final touches

If you want a slight sepia effect you can add it now. You can do this by going to Layers->New Adjustment Layer->Hue/Saturation and ticking the colorize box. Use Hue:30, Saturation:10 and Lightness:0 to give a sepia tint, or you can try a cyanotype effect with Hue:220, Saturation:10 and Lightness:0. For this image, I went with a sepia tone: (This image links to a large sized version)

The Final Image (view large)

Step 7 - Enjoy.

Now you have your pinhole image! If you have a flikr account you can add it to the pinhole group, and depending on your crop choices the square format group, so others can marvel at your hard work.

Please let me know if you try this on any of your images - if we get some really good ones, we may be able to make a showcase here.