Jan 21
Photoshop vintage effect
2008 at 01.38 pm posted by Veerle Pieters
Back in October I took this photo, in front of our house. A cool scene, bright colors and a double rainbow. After seeing this picture on my Flickr page, I received an e-mail from Marco who asked me about the post process of this image. Now here is my answer…
Choose your image carefully
First of all I need to mention that some pictures are better suitable than others. It's a good thing to experiment a lot and find out if the result is to your liking. Btw, not all settings I suggest are written in stone. Sometimes you discover the best effect by accident. How it looks good for you also boils down to personal preference. Let's take this picture as an example and create this same effect.
Add contrast and saturation
Place the image in a separate layer. In the Layers palette click the adjustment layers menu icon and select "Brightness/Contrast". Check the preview option so you see the direct result. Set the Contrast to +20. Hit OK. Click the adjustment layers menu icon again and select "Hue/Saturation". Set the Saturation to +20. Hit OK.
Adjust curves
Add another adjustement layer. This time choose "Curves...". Select the Red channel and make sure the edit points icon is selected. Change the curve line a bit as show in the image above.
Select Green from the Channel dropdown menu and adjust the curve as shown in the image above.
Now select Blue from the Channel dropdown menu and adjust the curve as shown in the image above.
Add Vignette effect
Select the layer with your photo and go to the Filter menu and select "Convert for Smart Filters". Doing this means you can apply filters to the photo while leaving your original in tact. First you'll get a message that says the layer will be converted into a smart object. Click OK. With this approach you'll be able to adjust the filters you've applied at any time. These Smart Filters work a bit like Adjustments layers but then with filter effects.
Now go to the Filter menu and select Distort > Lens Correction. In the Vignette option set the amount to -100 and the midpoint to +50. Hit the OK button. You'll see the Smart Filter appear below the layer. Double clicking this will open the Lens Correction filter options again where you can adjust anything you want. Double clicking the slider icon on the right will give you the option to adjust the layer mode and the transparency of the effect on the layer. Set the value to 70%. Now that's pretty neat stuff if you ask me :)
Add some Colorisation
Your photo should look pretty dramatic right now with a lot of contrast. Now we'll tone it all down again, but of course with a special effect to make it look like an old photo. In the Layers palette click the adjustment layers menu icon again and select "Hue/Saturation". Check the Colorize option in the bottom right corner as well as Preview. Drag the sliders until you get a bit of a sepia duo tone effect on your photo just as shown in the picture above. Change the opacity of this adjustement layer to 50%.
The final touch
You could say OK we're done, but there is one little accent that our photo needs to give that real vintage touch. These photos always have some pinkish glow as if colors are faded from the sun. Therefor click the adjustment layers menu icon in the Layers palette again and select "Solid Color". Select a very bright hot pink magenta color and click OK. Change the opacity of the layer to 5%. That's it. Now you should have a vintage photo.
Before and after
Here is another example:
Make sure you experiment with the settings of these adjustement layers and filters. Like I said before the outcome differs a lot on the chosen image and also on the settings. My apologies to Marco that it took some time to bring this online. Hope you enjoyed this tutorial and learned a few things again :)
Want to learn more?
A good and not expensive source to learn more about Illustrator, Photoshop, or web design is by joining the Tuts+ sites. You get access to the source files for just $9 a month. So your ONE membership gives you access to members-only content for ALL the Plus sites. I've written a tutorial for the Vector Tuts section.
64served
1
Very cool, thanks for writing up this tutorial. I love these sorts of tricks - reminds me of Kottke’s Lomo effect that he wrote up a while back.
2
Beautiful, I’ll be using this technique for sure!! Bookmarked on SU for reference :)
3
Wonderful technique. I stumbled across something sort of similar a while ago but it’s too time consuming to keep on applying.
Ohh for a plugin to do this kind of thing!
4
Great set of tips; they form a great starting-point for future efforts!
Although, I think the effect is much more successful on the second test image.
5
Great tutorial again. I should really try this with some of my own tonight.
Another great way to do something similar is to match the colors of your recent picture with the colors of a vintage one.
6
Cool! Thanks for the write-up Veerle.
7
That is a cool little effect. It is even pretty easy to do and will come in handy for a project that I am currently working on.
8
Gordon said:
You don’t need a plugin for this! Just record an action and next time you only need to press play ;)
9
Very nice tuturial. Now the question is: How do you do it the other way around? I got tons of old pics lying around that I’d like to fix up. Apparently there is a method which makes them look like they just came back from the photostudio… Anyone?
10
Great tutorial. That 5% of pink at the end makes all the difference in the world as far as making it feel authentically vintage. Thanks so much.
11
GREAT tutorial. I remember back in my old job as a newspaper designer 100 % of the images I worked with were analog scanned photos and I remember making them look like your “before” picture was a real pain in the neck.
Who would’ve thought now Vintage is the new cool thing.
Great as usual V.
12
Ohh! Great! Love your tutorials!
13
Thanks a lot, that’s a great effect. I’ve never tried recording an action before. I’ll have to try that.
14
Really cool technique as always :)
I want to add I really like the way you do screen caps for these how to articles. They illustrate the directions so nicely.
15
I usually do those kind of effects in Aperture, but this a nice way too, cool results ;-) !!
16
wonderful! thanks for sharing your information I will definately use this in the near future.
17
Excellent stuff Veerle. Another technique to remember, because I process lots of pictures, this could be a nice extra. Thanks!
18
Veerle, I love the results of this tutorial, but found some of the steps were lacking an explanation.
In particular, I’d love to know what “Change the curve line a bit” is actually doing to the image, as it isn’t particularly clear to me in your screenshots.
19
This is a great tutorial. I’ve been wanting to start a personal family travel blog and I imagined the photos having this kind of old look. Now I can make it happen. Thanks.
20
Very Cool! Thanks for sharing!
21
Thanks for sharing!
22
Nice one! I’m sure there’s an equivalent way with the GIMP too ;-)
23
Really great effect, fantastic explanation. Just makes me wonder: how much of what we see is still real? :)
24
Great tutorial! Thanks!
25
Great technique! Here‘s my first try. Amazing!
26
Wonderful tutorial! After reading it I had to try it out so I applied it to a random picture I took over a year ago. I made the decision to stop before adding the sepia look and I believe that taking out the last two steps made a great result. Check it out! :)
http://eriney.deviantart.com/art/Vintage-Shoe-75246990
27
Since this tutorial can be done by creating actions, why don’t you make a tutorial to make an action? I bet not all people are quite aware with that.
28
Uhhh thanks for this darling
29
Thanks for this, I don’t have a lomo camera :( but this is something I can use to get that cool effect, THANKS!
30
Another nice technique from Veerle. Thanks!
31
Thanks a lot, that’s a great technique.
32
Great post, as usual. It’s something I will probably need but have never thought about.
33
Hey
really intresting
I dont have talent, I have two left hands in designs, but I will try this tutor on my photos :D
Greetings, Projektowanie S.
34
Great job, thaks for this vitage efect.
And here is my vintage photo.
http://tobolka.deviantart.com/art/Vintage-photo-75329567
35
How to record an “action”? That’s something completely new to me.
36
Great tip. I’ve done this a few different ways but never with the individual channel/curve adjustments. Much more flexible than my clunky methods!
37
Pretty nice technique! I like it.
It would be interesting maybe to try and combine this with the realistic analog grain technique I blogged about last fall?
38
love the tutorial! thank you so much, put together so well. i am just wondering if the “convert for smart filter” is available in CS2? I couldn’t find it and i tried in the help section too… thanks much!
39
Thanks for the help. Tutorials are always appreciated.
40
Brandy said:
You are changing the the RGB color channels, so you are adding more or less red, green or blue.
Timothy Diokno said:
I’ll try to do a tutorial about that at a later date.
heather said:
Smart Filter is a new feature only available in Photoshop CS3 I’m afraid.
41
I had been looking around for a tutorial on this exact technique. This is perfect.
42
thank you*
43
Very nice tutorial….......this should help my web design on future work…...I will certainly return to this site to see additional projects…...
44
this is so cool ! thanks for a great tutorial .. :)
45
My first couple of fail attempt, I used Distort > Lens Correction with Vignette amount set to 100!!! I didn’t realize there is negative sign which should turn the amount into -100. And all what I did is brighter whitening edge of picture, silly me, I didn’t notice ^_^
Anyone who tried, make sure you keyed in all the correct values. Cheers.
46
I have spent so many long, lonely hours looking for source imagery with this ‘vintage’ look for use in my illustrations. Thank you so much for this wonderful tutorial. “..teach a man to fish..etc.”
47
Great tutorial. Added it to my Del.icio.us! Thanks :)
48
I am lacking in smart filters in my measly cs2, but when I upgrade I will give it a try. Excellent tutorial.
49
“You are changing the the RGB color channels, so you are adding more or less red, green or blue.”
Well, I did know that, but thanks. I guess I just don’t understand how wiggling a line around causes that to happen. Maybe I need to find a tutorial on curves…
50
very good modifying tutorial i like this
51
Great tut, appreciate your effort.
52
I’ve just been trying to apply the similar effect on some of my photos that needed some ‘aging’ effects on them. Thanks for the tutorial, it was really helpful!
53
so cool.how great the set of tips are.thank you for share.
54
Amazing, I’ve been looking for a quicker way to achieve this effect for months now. Thanks veerle!
55
Amazing tutorial. Very cool technique to add that beautiful vintage feel to a photo.
I tried it out on a photograph of some glamourous hostesses I took at a Charity Ball that I worked at last week. The technique makes it look like a behinds-the-scenes shot from the Sands Hotel in Vegas ‘72.
56
Thanks for the nice explanation. With all these details you’ve mentioned, I will try to mimic this effect in Adobe Lightroom, my prefered postprocessing application (because of it’s speed and it’s non destructive processing)
57
Thanks, clear and nice tutorial.
I will use it.
58
wow!.. great tutorial!
59
Thank you so much for this tutorial. I’ve been trying so hard to get this look in photoshop.
60
Hi, thank you so much for posting these requested tutorial! You know who I am :-)
Great tutorial!
61
Very cool tutorial, I am actually trying it right now! Thanks for posting!!
62
Great stuff. Simple and effective tutorial.
I will say that the ‘Photo Filter’ adjustment layer is much easier for alot of the Hue/Saturation color effects you’re doing.
63
perfect! I’ll love that effect 4ever…thanks a lot (i’m new in the design’s world)
Gracias!!!!
64
Wow… thanks for the great tutorial. BTW, your blog is really so stylish.