Learn how to use Polaroid Lab at its best to print your favorite photos.
When exposing your photos with the Polaroid Lab you need to keep in mind, that you’re technically taking a photo of your phone’s screen to expose the image onto Polaroid film.
Do you know how to use your Polaroid Lab? If not, have a look at this article.
This leads to 2 important consequences:
- A Polaroid photo will never be a perfect copy of your digital image, but it will have its unique beauty, with its own color palette. There’s no Polaroid photo that would be completely identical because the film also plays an important role in the result.
- As we’re talking about analog instant photography and the role of the film, it’s not possible to see on the app while changing exposure and colors, a preview of the final photo, as every film batch reacts a bit differently to the light.
Before you start it’s also important to consider the fact you may not want to replicate the exact photo, but you want to add a specific touch: think about what result you’d like to achieve before reading this article further.
General rules
Just like you would if you were shooting with a Polaroid camera, it’s important to evaluate the light and composition of the subject you’d like to have on your Polaroid photo.
What works best are:
- Photos with bright colors
- Photos with a good contrast
You may consider editing your photo using your phone photo editor to adjust your source photo before exposing it on the Lab.
Exposure
When you need to choose what exposure value is best in your case, check your photo: is it well lit? If so, you can leave the exposure level on 0. If not, and it’s slightly dark overall, you may consider enhancing the exposure to +1/3 or +2/3 (choose +3/3 only if the photo is really dark or you want to achieve an extreme result). If at the opposite, and it’s overexposed or too bright in certain areas, you may consider lowering the exposure choosing –1/3 or –2/3. Consider, while doing that you can improve the overexposed areas but if you have dark areas too, these parts will be very dark with low or no details. The best solution is to find a balance with everything.
Color
The color switch in the app is about color saturation.
The higher the value, the more saturated colors and warm tones will be. The lower the value, the more you’ll have desaturated colors and cooler tones. To help you choose what suits you best, check your photo again and think about the result you’d like to achieve: for example, if your photo already has a predominance of red and pink tones, and you want to keep them as they are, then keep color value around 30. If your photo has a predominance of green or blue tones and you put the color value at the maximum, blues and greens will be predominant while pinkish tones will be almost absent, if you choose the opposite, leaving the color level at 0 you’ll have a desaturated photo with a predominance of pink and red hues.
Do you have any other questions about Polaroid Lab?
Have a look at our FAQ section or contact our Customer Support by filling in the form.