Modern photography often involves a lot of post-editing. Fancy some special effects without the hassle of post-editing your photos? We can DIY some simple tools to help achieve more interesting photo effects.

We can put some transparent cream-like substance such as Vaseline on the outer area of filter (never apply directly on lens!) and leave blank the central area. This will create photos with a clear center and blurry surrounding and is particularly suitable for portraits.

A prism can refract light rays. Place it in front of the lens can create a “rainbow” on the photo. Slightly adjust the angle and position of the prism and you will get some surprising refracted light effects – sometimes even making part of the image disappear. This is a very special and playful trick to try!

Apart from the aforementioned Vaseline trick, we can also attach a hand-torn transparent plastic bag to the front of lens (for more irregular soft-focus effect, please don’t use scissors) to allow the light to pass through the bag and create soft-focus and flare. We can also paint different colors on the bag using water-based markers to create filters of varying colors.

When shooting, use the largest aperture and longest focal length as possible to blur the edges of the bag.