How to Make Photography Filters

A simple photography filter can be achieved using a good photoshop app, but all the good ones (in my experience) tend to cost money. You can also buy physical filters to snap on your camera lens but unless you use them a lot, it isn't always worth the money. You can easily create filters with what you have in your junk drawer. To show the effects of the filters, I am just photographing this plate.

To make the exact filters described you will need:

Any type of camera - phone, compact, polaroid, bridge, dslr, etc. (I am using a bridge, but it doesn't matter)

Colored Sharpies

Ziploc bag

Vaseline / neosporin

Cotton stuffing / cotton ball

Lace

Tea strainer

And of course, a subject

The easiest way to make a colored filter is to take a ziploc bag and a sharpie. You first cut out a square slightly larger than you lens. You should then take the plastic and start to color it with sharpies. You can color with several colors or just one. The trickiest part is to figure out how to hold it without obstructing the lens but once you get it right, it becomes very easy. I moved mine around quite a bit to experiment with the different color combinations.

To create this effect you will need to grab a small piece of stuffing or a cotton ball and stretch it out. The end result works best if the cotton is extremely thin, but you can experiment with different thicknesses.

A plastic haze can be done two different ways, with slightly different results. The first way of doing it is to take a ziplock bag and cut the seam at the bottom. You will then take the top of the ziplock bag and put it around the lens, scrunching the rest of the bag so that the part you have cut just barely hangs around the edges of your lens. The other way is to cut a square of ziplock slightly larger than your lens and cover it in a thin coat of vaseline or neosporin.

I couldn't get a great picture for this one because trying to both hold the tea strainer and take the photo was quite the challenge. It you simply take a tea strainer, open it, and use the shadow it produces to get a fishnet look. You can also use lace over your lens to create fun effects.